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Seventy Year Saturday: 1947

With the world recovering from the worst war ever, World War II, and the cold war just starting, 1947 was a year of many musical landmarks.

In classical music, there are new operas by Benjamin Britten (Albert Herring), Gian Carlo Menotti (The Telephone) Francis Poulenc (Les mamelles de Tiresias), and Virgil Thomson (The Mother of Us All.) Sergei Prokofiev completes his 6th Symphony (Op. 111) reflecting the tragedies of World War II, and condemned by the Soviet government for its modernism. Arnold Schoenberg completes A Survivor from Warsaw, the grim story of a holocaust survivor during his ordeal in a Nazi concentration camp. Other notable works composed in 1947 include the following completed compositions: Samuel Barber – Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Vagn Holmboe – Symphony No. 6, Aram Khachaturian – 3rd Symphony, Witold Lutosławski – Symphony No. 1, Heitor Villa-Lobos – String Quartet No. 11, William Walton – String Quartet in A minor — and Edgard Varèse – unfinished work, Tuning Up, a parody of the orchestra tuning process before the start of a concert.

In jazz, bebop artists continue to gain the attention of listeners, Thelonious Monk, at age thirty, records several masterpieces for Blue Note including Ruby My Dear, Off Minor, Well You Needn’t, In Walked Bud (a tribute to Bud Powell, based on the chord progressions of Irving Berlin’s Blue Skies”), and the incredible ‘Round About Midnight. Wardell Grey and Dexter Gordon record The Chase, and Dexter Gordon and Teddy Edwards record The Duel. Charlie Parker, Max Roach and Miles Davis record several sides together under various names (Charlie Parker All Stars, Miles Davis All Stars, Original Charlie Parker Quintet) in combination with various other musicians such as Bud Powell, Duke Jordan, John Lewis, and J.J. Johnson. Parker also records tracks with trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro, Howard McGhee, saxophonists Wardell Gray, Shorty Rogers, pianists Erroll Garner, Dodo Marmarosa, Russ Freeman, guitarist Barney Kessel, bassist Red Callender, and others, leaving some incredible recordings for future generations to marvel over.

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For those that were around New York City to catch live music, they could see the aforementioned Miles Davis All-Stars at the Savoy, Louis Armstrong at Carnegie Hall with his big band, and The Count Basie Orchestra at the Paradise Club in Atlantic City or at the Strand Theater in Lakewood, New Jersey, supporting Billie Holiday.

For musical theater lovers in London in 1947, Annie Get Your Gun (Irving Berlin) opened at the Coliseum on June 7 and ran for 1304 performances and Oklahoma! (Rodgers & Hammerstein) opened at the Theatre Royal on April 29 and ran for 1543 performances.

Of the many babies born in 1947, notable future rock composers and musicians include David Bowie and folk singer Sandy Denny, born in January, Derek Shulman and John Weathers of Gentle Giant born in February, Elton John in March, Steve Howe and Iggy Pop in April, Ronnie Wood, Mick Fleetwood and Mickey Finn (T.Rex) in June, Brian May (Queen), Arlo Guthrie, Peter Banks (Yes, Flash), Mitch Mitchell (The Jimi Hendrix Experience) and Carlos Santana in July, Ian Anderson in July, Marc Bolan and Meat Loaf in September, Bob Weir (Grateful Dead) and Laura Nyro in September, Greg Lake and Joe Walsh in November and Gregg Allman, Jeff Lynne (Electric Light Orchestra) and Burton Cummings in December.

In movies, we have the timeless Christmas movie, Miracle on 34th Street, as well as The Bishop’s Wife with Cary Grant and Loretta Lynn and It Happened on Fifth Avenue.

The next few years would bring major changes all over the world. Fortunately that world as it was in 1947 has been well documented in records, movies and books.

For Must Listen To Gentle Giant and Prog Rock albums, please check out:
https://zumpoems.com/must-listen-to-music/

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Fifty Year Friday: Singer/Songwriters; Additional Groups and Artists

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Singer/Songwriters

2017 is soon coming to a close, and so must our fifty year anniversary reflection on 1967. If we had started these posts earlier in 1967, instead of starting mid-year, we could have highlighted many more albums. Those we chose were personal favorites. Some of those not included are also worth noting.

1967 provide of wealth of albums by singer songwriters from Arlo Guthrie and his captivating “Alice’s Restaurant” album to Van Dyke Parks first album, “Song Cycle.”

Warner Brothers Records hired Van Dyke Parks with high hopes based on his previous work with Harper’s Bizarre, The Byrds, Tim Buckley, and Paul Revere & the Raiders, and then spared no costs for Parks to record his album — racking up session hours and using a full orchestra. When “Song Cycle” was played for the president of Warner Bros. Records, his reaction was apparent confusion: “Song Cycle? Okay — where are the songs, then?” The label didn’t release the album until December 1967, a year after it was recorded, until, as the story goes, Jac Holzman of Elektra records offered to buy if from Warner Bros. Once released, it’s sales where less than expected, and prompted Warner Bros. to run full page newspaper and magazine advertisements that said they “lost $35,509 on ‘the album of the year’ (dammit)” and offered owners of the album the chance to send in their worn-out LPs of “Song Cycle” in exchange for two new copies, so one could be passed on to a friend.

Harry Nilsson authors his second album, Pandemonium Shadow Show, originally intended to be titled after Ray Bradbury’s “Something Wicked This Way Comes”, which is a mix of Nilsson songs and several covers including two Lennon/McCartney songs. Nilsson’s droll lyrics and musical arrangements provide character to a well-executed and produced album. The album includes the definitive version of Nilsson’s “Without Her”, sparsely arranged with flute, electric bass, strummed guitar and cello. The album fared better in Canada then in the US, eventually catching the attention of Beatles publicist Derek Taylor who sent copies to the Beatles. Purportedly, John Lennon listened to the album over and over again, playing it back to back for a total of 36 consecutive hours.

1967 provided the release of two Bob Dylan albums, Dylan’s eighth studio album “John Wesley Harding”, an album filled with songs that appear were written first as poetry and then Dylan added music to them, and a greatest hits album compiling classic Dylan songs from his first seven albums. For many of us, born between 1954 and 1960 this was our first exposure to Dylan besides what was played on AM radio.

Also for many of us born in that mid to late fifties time frame, the great North American singer songwriter of our time was not American Bob Dylan, but Canadian Roberta Joan “Joni” Mitchell. At this time, Joni had not recorded an album but, after moving to the U.S. and performing in various clubs, was gaining attention from these performances and in several of her songs that more established artists recorded.

The most notable 1967 Joni Mitchell song, was recorded by Judy Collins on her 1967 album Wildflowers album (released in 1968.) This song, “Both Sides Now”, would reach #8 on the U.S. pop singles, making it Judy Collins biggest hit and being the most contributing fact to the Wildflowers album peaking at the number 5 best selling album on December 1968.

Laura Nyro released her debut album, More Than a New Discovery. Recorded in 1966, initially released in 1967, and then reissued in 1969 and again in 1973, this album showcases Nyro’s songwriting skill and versatility with many of the songs being covered by other artists, including “And When I Die” (Blood Sweat and Tears), Wedding Bell Blues” and “Blowin’ Away” (The Fifth Dimension), and “Stoney End” (Barbara Streisand.)

Recorded in 1966 and early 1967 the Deram label releases Cat Stevens’ first album, Matthew and Son. The album makes the UK Top 10, and has several successful singles. Later that year, Stevens records New Masters which is released in December 1967, and sells significantly less copies than the first album.

Also in 1967, Tim Buckley released his second album, his most popular and generally most acclaimed album, Goodbye and Hello. Tim Hardin released his second album, simply titled Tim Hardin 2. Leonard Cohen’s releases his first album, the captivating and engaging Songs of Leonard Cohen, after Judy Collins’ recording of his song “Suzanne” brought Cohen to the attention of legendary record producer John Hammond. Cohen’s debut album begins with “Suzanne” and includes several fairly profound songs like “The Stranger Song”, “Sisters of Mercy”, and “Stories of the Street” as well as the well known “So Long, Marianne” referencing his close companion, Marianne Ihlen.

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Additional Notable Albums of 1967

The Beach Boys release two excellent albums, Smiley Smile and Wild Honey.

Pretty Things releases their distinctly interesting, and accessible “Emotions” album, full of life and musical vibrancy with brass instruments adding further energy. Recorded in late 1966, and early 1967, it did not sell well, perhaps this was a result of ineffective distribution or marketing or perhaps the album was a bit ahead of its time, sounding more like it was recorded in 1968 or early 1969.

The first album of what many consider the first rock supergroup, Cream, sets the stage for later heavy rock bands (and by extension, heavy metal bands) with their second album, Disraeli Gears. Though there were many influences that spawned hard rock and heavy metal, Cream had a significant impact on many such younger rock musicians.

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Art (Art essential being an earlier formation of the group, Spooky Tooth), infuses rivulets of blues and wisps of psychedelia into their only album, Supernatural Fairy Tales creating a thick-textured album, perfumed with an aroma of cannabis. Earlier to the recording of this album, several of the same musicians under the name “Hapshash and the Coloured Coat” recorded an album earlier in 1967, titled “Featuring The Human Host And The Heavy Metal Kids” — this being, as far as I can tell, the first reference to “heavy metal.”

Other notable albums, many heavily psychedelic (and some incorporating elements of free jazz) were released by groups such as 13th Floor Elevators, The Aggregation, Ten Years After, AMM, Chocolate Watchband, Clear Light, Country Joe and the Fish, The Grateful Dead, Kaleidoscope, Mesmerizing Eye, Moby Grape, Orbital, Pearls Before Swine, Red Krayola (The Parable of Arable Land), Rupert’s People, Sagittarius, The Seeds, Sly and the Family Stone, Sopwith Camel, Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Steppeulvene, Strawberry Alarm Clock, The Animals, The Beethoven Soul, The Box, The Ceyleib People, The Easybeats, The Factory, The Fire Escape, The Freak Scene, The Incredible String Band, The Lefte Bank, The Motions, The Serpent Power, The Smoke, Smoky Robinson and the Miracles, The Turtles (Happy Together), The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, The Yardbirds, Thomas Edisun’s Electric Light Bulb Band, Vanilla Fudge, and various more accessible or highly commercial groups like The Association, The Grass Roots, The Ventures, The Monkees (put together for a U.S. television series), and The Young Rascals.

This only scratches the surface. I have not mentioned artists like Albert King (Born Under a Bad Sign), Nina Simone, Miles Davis, John Coltrane (Expression), Sam Rivers, Charles Tyler (Eastern Man Alone), Bill Dixon, Blue Mitchell, Freddie Hubbard, Gary Burton, Graham Collier, Herbie Mann, Roland Kirk, Marvin Gaye, Magic Sam, Otis Spann, John Mayall, Miriam Makeba, Van Morrison, Stevie Wonder, Buddy Tate, and many others, some of which I have covered in previous “Fifty Year Friday” posts: there are a number of incredible jazz albums as well as blues, rhythm and blues, and soul music albums.

Though the term progressive rock is more formerly applied to many of the more adventurous and classically influenced bands of the early 1970s, for my money 1967 was the childhood of progressive rock with the birth perhaps occurring in 1966 with Beach Boys Pet Sounds, the Beatles’ Revolver and many psychedelia-tinged albums released in 1967, but recorded at the end of 1966. I challenge anyone to deny the progressiveness of Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, Procol Harum, Van Dyke Parks, or even groups like The Who, The Beach Boys, or The Doors.

This was a vital period in the expansion and diversification of rock music, the like of which has not been seen since. Fortunately for us, even albums that were nearly impossible to get a hold of in 1967 are now relatively readily available, not only on CD, or in some cases freshly, pressed LPs, but also available through streaming services or on Youtube.

Most importantly, have a happy and fulfilling 2018, and don’t neglect to broadly explore the immensity of great music available to those of us alive today.

Previous Fifty Year Friday Posts for the year 1967:

The Beatles: Sgt Peppers

The Beatles: Magical Mystery Tour

Jimi Hendrix: Are you Experienced

Jimi Hendrix: Axis: Bold as Love

The Who: The Who Sell Out

Moody Blues: Days of Future Passed

Byrds, Hollies and Buffalo Springfield

Love “Forever Changes”

Far Out 1967, Part One

Far Out 1967, Part Two

Nirvana “The Story of Simon Simopath; The Kinks “Something Else”

Dizzy Gillespie in 1967

Larry Young “Contrasts”; Joe Zawinul, “The Rise and Fall of the Third Stream”

Procol Harum “Procol Harum and The Doors “Strange Days”

Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington

Arthur Rubinstein, Pink Floyd

Marta Argerich and Carlos Paredes

David Bowie, Marc Bolan, John’s Children

John Coltrane, Jefferson Airplane

Thelonious Monk, McCoy Tyner

Hindustani Classical Music

The Doors: The Doors

The Velvet Underground

Aretha Franklin, Simon Dupree and the Big Sound

Mahler recordings

Rolling Stones: Between The Buttons

Jobim, Zappa, Beefheart

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Century Sunday: 1917 Part 1: Sweatman, OJDB, Kreisler, and Heifitz

Sweatman

Son of a barber in Brunswick, Missouri, Wilbur Coleman Sweatman learned piano as a child from his older sister and soon started playing the violin, perhaps having taught himself on the instrument. Later he also learned clarinet and made this his primary instrument touring with circus bands, eventually leading dance and jazz bands, and developing the unusual skill of playing two, and then later, three clarinets at once.

He recorded several cylinders and records as bandleader, one of the being possibly the very first recording of Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag. In 1911, he published “Down Home Rag” a work in 4/4 time (as opposed to the usual 2/4 time of ragtime works) that shares elements of the contemporary fox trots and turkey trots of the time.

In December 1916, in a New York recording studio, Sweatman recorded two takes of “Down Home Rag”, each with notable melodic variations, arguably establishing him as the first band leader to have recorded jazz and these recordings as the very first recorded jazz records. This was two months earlier than the Original Dixie Jazz Band recorded “Livery Stable Blues” and “Dixeland Jass Band One Step”, the latter based on Joe Jordon’s “That Teasin’ Rag” and being the first record to ever contain the word “jass”. Later in 1917, Wilbur Sweatman would record additional tracks, several of which contained the word “jass” or “jazz” in their titles. For additional information on Wilbur Sweatman, please refer to the excellent and well-researched biography, “That’s Got ’em: The Life and Music of Wilbur C. Sweatman” By Mark Berresford

Though Wilbur Sweatman recorded the first jazz record, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (ODJB) recorded the first record with the work “jass” or “jazz” in the title, when they recorded “Dixeland Jass Band One Step” in February 1917. More importantly, their record label, Victor, effectively promoted their material, even if as novelty, providing the sound of something akin to jazz to record buyers all over the country. Already successful as a dance band, first in Chicago, then in New York, the fame brought by these recordings, and their next set on Columbia, further increased not only the popularity of the ODJB, but was a catalyst for jazz in general. Soon bands all over the country included the word “jazz” in their name or the titles of the records and soon true improvisational jazz music was available live and through records to a diverse audience across the United States.

Though jazz predates the recordings of Wilbur Sweatman and the Original Dixieland Jazz band by several years, records and the phonograph were the primary reason for the rapid spread and adoption of jazz as not only trendy, but popular and indispensable music.

Composer, and the greatest violinist of his generation (born in 1875, died in 1962). Fritz Kreisler recorded several times in 1917 for the Victor label. Taken with earlier recordings on Victor, going back to 1910, we are left with a diverse set of miniatures, some of which are Kreisler’s own compositions, some of which were even credited to other composers, long dead, until Kreisler revealed they were his own compositions in the style of those composers.

These are acoustic recordings, as were all recordings in 1917 and up until about 1925, which means that instead of using microphones to capture sound, large horns were used that generated vibrations to etch the groves in the mastering cylinder (very early on) or platter. In addition, the rotation of the platter was mechanical and not electrical. The performer or performers had to position themselves near the horn and the resulting recording had a limited frequency range between 250 to 2500 Hz (Hertz or cycles per second: vibrations per seconds, known as the frequency, determining musical pitch and the nature of the sound since a given instrument produces a set of vibrations for any given note.) The human hearing range is around 20 Hz to 2000 Hz and the notes on the piano range from 27.5 Hz to 4186 Hz. 250 Hz is not very low: for example, the highest of the four open strings on the cello sounds at 220 Hz and middle C on the piano is around 262 Hz. The B natural, only a semitone below, is around 247 Hz, meaning that the left hand accompaniment of a piano piece like “Maple Leaf Rag”, disregarding “overtones” or the additional upper frequencies that the piano or any instrument produces for each given note, is almost entirely below the lower limit of the range available to recordings in 1917. Thus, while one could record piano pieces on this technology, or in the case of many of the Kreisler recordings, violin with piano accompaniment, it sounds very thin and strange. The amazing thing, psychologically, is how the listener adjusts and soon gets comfortable with the recorded sound, as unfaithful as it is to the original performance.

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Shortly after his Carnegie Hall debut on November 7, 1917 RCA started recording Jascha Heifitz, only a couple of months away from his 17th birthday. Just as Kreisler was the most notable and celebrated violinist of his generation, Heifitz (1901-1987) was the most prominent and acclaimed violinist of his generation.

These 1917 recordings of Heifitz available on CD are compelling and vital. The transfers are good, and once one puts in some time listening to recordings of this era, the significant sonic limitations of the acoustic recording process don’t pose any serious barrier to enjoying the music. We are very fortunate that Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, allowing it to develop, although slowly from a 21st Century person’s perspective. so that by 1917 we start having some real treasures of music captured forever on these ten and twelve inch shellac disks.

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Fifty Year Friday: The Jimi Hendrix Experience “Axis: Bold as Love”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Axis: Bold as Love

Recorded in May and June 1967, and released in December 1967, composer, lyricist, and guitarist Jimi Hendrix shows a stunning amount of development since the recording sessions (October 1966 through April 1966) of the first album, “Are You Experienced?”

The opening of the first track of “Axis: Bold as Love” borders on the puerile, yet to the rescue with the entrance of Hendrix’s guitar at the thirty-three-second mark, we are assured of the exceptional. Based on just the contents of the last eighty seconds of this first track, one can effortlessly make the case that Hendrix says far more in this one brief passage than can be found in Stockhausen’s entire “Hymen” (covered here in an earlier post.)

From there on, this album neatly blends the accessible with cutting-edge guitar work and effective “interactiveness” (“interaction” is too weak of a word to use here) between bass, drums, and Hendrix guitar. With “Up From the Skies” we get a more relaxed, self-confident Hendrix on vocals than on the previous album, but still with more advanced and interesting instrumental passage work, indicative of much of his work in his later albums. “Spanish Castle Magic” picks up musically from where “Foxy Lady” left off. Notable here is the bass/drums musical punctuation which becomes such a prevalent device in progressive rock and heavy metal (particularly Led Zeppelin, which Hendrix purportedly never much cared for, considering them excess baggage — a group that stole from others. The closest to a direct Hendrix quote on this topic, attributed by Keith Altham and published in Melody Maker, shortly after Hendrix’s death in September 1970, was “I don’t think much of Led Zeppelin—I don’t think much of them. Jimmy Page is a good guitar player.”)

The album continues with “Spanish Castle Magic”, which again shows a more developed and innovative approach than the first album’s excellent “Fire”, including Hendrix adding a backward guitar track. Though the next two songs, “Wait Until Tomorrow” and “Ain’t No Telling,” are not particularly musically interesting, the arrangement adds enough life to make them solid dance selections. And, as consistent throughout this album, Hendrix’s lyrics and guitar work take these works well above the ordinary.

“Little Wing”, a beautiful ballad, and “If Six Was Nine” are classics. “You’ve Got Me Floating” is a positive and upbeat diversion, with Graham Nash and Move band members providing the back-up vocals in the chorus. Introduced with backward guitar, “Castles Made of Sand” provides us with another reflective Hendrix ballad. The next song, “She’s So Fine”, is written by bassist Noel Redding, and is a prototypical English rock song, with a Who-like chorus, and some interesting guitar from Hendrix. The Hendrix guitar solo at the end is just enough to provide justification for its inclusion.

“One Rainy Wish” starts out ballad-like in 3/4 (with a 4/4 and 5/4 measure added to enhance a dreamy introduction), lush and soulful, then modulates into a heavy metal exuberant 4/4 chorus and then back to the A section with a fade-out coda. “Little Miss Lover” includes Hendrix’s use of a wah-wah pedal, an effect that would be adapted by countless rock guitarists later on.

A craftsman and perfectionist, Hendrix and his vision for this album were somewhat compromised by the objective of producer Chas Chandler, which basically was to get to the final take as efficiently and quickly as possible. Thankfully, the final track, “Bold As Love” (with lyrics openly confessing that the negative emotions are, unfortunately, as capable of being as bold as love, and limiting us in giving and receiving love) was not rushed — with at least twenty-seven takes, and four different endings tried. The song starts off, casually, then shifts to an anthem-like chorus, with the effective interplay between the verse and chorus — the chorus triumphant, celebrating victoriously, and apparently ending the piece — but instead rather providing the embers for an Olympian coda, which rises like that mythical Phoenix, accompanied by mellotron and transcendental guitar, to provide a majestic finale to a song and an album unlike any other released in 1967.

One may be tempted to ask how musical history would have been different if Chas Chandler had produced “Sgt. Pepper’s” and George Martin had produced “Axis: Bold as Love.” But like all such silly speculation (what if Lekeu age 24, had lived as long as Schubert, age 31, and Schubert had lived as long as Mozart, 35, and Mozart had lived as long as Chopin 39, and Chopin had lived as long as Beethoven, 56, and Beethoven had lived as long as Stravinsky, 88) time is much better spent listening to those musical masterpieces left to us by the musical masters of their time. “Axis: Bold as Love” is one of those masterpieces.

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Quick Reference & Semantic Summary (Fifty Year Friday Archive)

Primary Subject: Axis: Bold as Love (1967 sophomore studio album by The Jimi Hendrix Experience).
Key Artists & Personnel: Jimi Hendrix (guitar, vocals, composer), Noel Redding (bass, composer), Chas Chandler (producer), with guest backing vocals by Graham Nash and members of The Move.
Primary Musical Genres: Psychedelic Rock, Hard Rock, Proto-Heavy Metal, and Blues Rock.
Historical & Critical Context: Evaluates the album as a musical masterpiece that showcases Hendrix’s rapid compositional and technical evolution from his debut. Highlights his pioneering use of studio effects (backward guitar, wah-wah pedal, mellotron), advanced rhythmic interactivity, and perfectionism despite production time constraints.
Notable Tracks: “Little Wing”, “If Six Was Nine”, “Spanish Castle Magic”, “Castles Made of Sand”, and the complex, dynamically shifting title track “Bold As Love”.
Archival Context: Part of the Fifty Year Friday retrospective music review series.

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Fifty Year Friday: The Beatles “Magical Mystery Tour”

in 1968, I went, along with some other junior high school friends to another friend’s house where his dad greeted us by playing us Tchaikovsky’s 1812 overture on, what to most junior high students at that time, was a pretty impressive stereo system. I had had rather limited exposure to classical music at this point, never having been to a classical concert, and only having heard a few complete classical pieces like Ravel’s Bolero, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade on a limited-fidelity monophonic system. To hear this Tchaikovsky work not as a snippet in a television commerical, but from start to finish in full stereo, with horns and, ultimately, cannons, commandeering the empty air space around us, left a impregnable impression not just for that day, but the rest of my life.

An equally indelible impression was produced when we later went upstairs and our thirteen-year old host set the needle of his personal phonograph at the start of the first side of the Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour.” Now I had heard this song on the radio a number of times, but this phonograph produced better fidelity, and it occurred to me as we got to the end of side one, listening to the incredible “I Am the Walrus”, with its striking string arrangement and Lennon’s unrelenting, upper-register vocal delivery, that this was as unusual, mysterious and as equally vital as the 1812 overture we had heard downstairs. I couldn’t but make the comparison between these two supremely transcendental works, “I Am the Walrus” and “The 1812 Overture.” Nor was this effect reduced by our young host replaying the end of “I Am the Walrus” for us to clearly hear what sounded like “Smoke pot, smoke pot, everybody smoke pot.”

This album doesn’t have the cohesiveness of “Sgt. Peppers” or the second side of “Abbey Road, but the presence of “Strawberry Fields” and “I am the Walrus”, perhaps the only two songs of 1967 that are on par with “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”, is enough to make this album essential. There is also the post-summer of love anthem, “All You Need is Love”, which extended the momentum of the love movement for at least an additional eighteen months. George Harrison contributes the psychedelic and eastern influenced “Blue Jay Way”, one of those amazing tracks that we see so often on 1967 albums (for example, see last week’s post on the Byrd’s song “Why”) that solidly sound Indian influenced and yet does not contain a single sitar or other traditional Indian classical instruments.

This week marks the fiftieth anniversary of the release of “Magical Mystery Tour” on November 27, 1967 in the US, an album which sold a little under two million copies in the first 30 days of it’s release.

Track and personnel listing at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Mystery_Tour#Track_listing

The Beatles perform 'I Am The Walrus' for the film Magical Mystery Tour. West Malling Air Station, Kent, England. 20th September 1967. Images may be editorially reproduced only in conjunction with the 2012 DVD & Blu-ray / digital release of Magical Mystery Tour. Please credit © Apple Films Ltd. Promotional and review purposes only.

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Fifty Year Friday: Byrds, Hollies and Buffalo Springfield

Formed in 1964, in Los Angeles California, the Byrds are generally, with the advantage of retrospect, considered one of the more essential and influential bands of the mid-sixties, primarily due to their blending the rock style of the British Invasion with elements of country and western music, folk, west coast rock and psychedelia.

The fourth album, opens robustly with the semi-ironic, partly humorous, “So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star” Other strong songs include the jingly-jangly arranged Chris Hillman composition “Have You Seen Her Face”, Hillman’s “The Girl with No Name” (apparently inspired by a young lady with then real name of “Girl Freiberg”, one of the better known covers of Bob Dylan’s “My Back Pages”, and the David Crosby tracks “”Renaissance Fair” , “Everybody’s Been Burned”, “Mind Gardens” and “Why.” Psychedelia and Indian musical influences are present on several tracks with an electronic oscillator providing suitable effects and McGuinn’s guitar providing a suitable substitute for the sitar on “Why.”

Track listing [from Wikipedia]

Side one

“So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star” (Jim McGuinn, Chris Hillman) – 2:05
“Have You Seen Her Face” (Chris Hillman) – 2:25
“C.T.A.-102” (Jim McGuinn, Robert J. Hippard) – 2:28
“Renaissance Fair” (David Crosby, Jim McGuinn) – 1:51
“Time Between” (Chris Hillman) – 1:53
“Everybody’s Been Burned” (David Crosby) – 3:05

Side two

“Thoughts and Words” (Chris Hillman) – 2:56
“Mind Gardens” (David Crosby) – 3:28
“My Back Pages” (Bob Dylan) – 3:08
“The Girl with No Name” (Chris Hillman) – 1:50
“Why” (Jim McGuinn, David Crosby) – 2:45

Personnel

Sources for this section are as follows:^[1]^[5]^[23]^[54]^[55]

The Byrds

Jim McGuinn – lead guitar, vocals
David Crosby – rhythm guitar, vocals
Chris Hillman – electric bass, vocals (acoustic guitar on bonus track 12)
Michael Clarke – drums

The Hollies, released two albums in 1967, “Evolution” and “Butterfly”

Both albums have their annoying, overly-commercial, teeny-bop elements (think of what you dislike about Herman’s Hermits) but this is compensated by the inclusion of several excellent tracks. Lot of the credit for what is really good here goes to Graham Nash.

The best track on “Evolution” is the simply arranged and perfectly conceived “Stop Right There.” Other worthwhile tracks include the hyper-vibrato-infused “”Lullaby to Tim”, the catchy, if outdated-sounding for 1967, “Have You Ever Loved Somebody?”, the wistful, and melancholic “Rain on the Window”, the early Beatles-era “Heading for a Fall”, and the AM radio hit “Carrie Anne.”

US/Canada track listing of “Evolution” [from Wikipedia]

Side 1

“Carrie Anne” (Clarke-Hicks-Nash) lead vocal: Clarke, Hicks and Nash
“Stop Right There”
“Rain on the Window”
“Then the Heartaches Begin”
“Ye Olde Toffee Shoppe”

Side 2

“You Need Love”
“Heading for a Fall”
“The Games We Play”
“Lullaby to Tim”
“Have You Ever Loved Somebody”

Personnel

Allan Clarke – vocals, harmonica
Tony Hicks – lead guitar, vocals
Graham Nash – rhythm guitar, vocals
Bobby Elliott – drums
Bernie Calvert – bass guitar

“Butterfly” (retitled “Dear Eloise / King Midas in Reverse” in the US) has its moments also such as the introduction to “Eloise”, the upbeat, yet also partly annoyingly cloying “Wishyouawish” and “Away Away Away”, Nash’s simple and direct “Butterfly” (similar to “Stop Right There” on “Evolution”), and “Leave Me”, which was on the original twelve track UK “Evolution” album but not on the US ten track release of “Evolution.” Another notable track, not on the UK version, but only on the US version of the “Butterfly” LP, is the quirky, “King Midas with a Curse.”

US/Canada track listing of “Butterfly” released as “Dear Eloise / King Midas in Reverse” [from Wikipedia]

Side 1

“Dear Eloise”
“Wishyouawish”
“Charlie and Fred”
“Butterfly”
“Leave Me” (Clarke-Hicks-Nash)
“Postcard”

Side 2

“King Midas in Reverse“
“Would You Believe?”
“Away Away Away”
“Maker”
“Step Inside”

Personnel

Allan Clarke – vocals, harmonica
Tony Hicks – lead guitar, vocals
Graham Nash – rhythm guitar, vocals
Bobby Elliott – drums
Bernie Calvert – bass guitar

At this point the reader probably sees where I am going with this post — covering the Byrds, which had David Crosby writing some of their best songs, the Hollies, with Graham Nash writing some of their best tunes, and next, Buffalo Springfield, with Neil Young and Stephen Stills — these four guitarists/singers/composers forming Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

Buffalo Springfield’s first album. simply titled after the band, was released in December 1966, but it qualifies as one of the first solidly 1967-sounding albums. In January 1967, the most impressive song of the first half of 1967 hit the airwaves, a rare objective view of the widening political divide in the U.S.. “For What It’s Worth”. I was eleven when I heard this, and it was, for me, clearly the coolest song on AM radio of all time. It is worth re-examaning the lyrics so relevant to 1967, but also applicable to today:

What it is ain’t exactly clear:
There’s a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware.

I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound?
Everybody look what’s going down.

There’s battle lines being drawn:
Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.
Young people speaking their minds —
Getting so much resistance from behind.

It’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look what’s going down.

What a field-day for the heat:
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say hooray for our side!

It’s s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look what’s going down.

Paranoia strikes deep:
Into your life it will creep.
It starts when you’re always afraid:
You step out of line, the man come and take you away.

We better stop, hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look what’s going down.
Stop, hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look what’s going down.
Stop, now, what’s that sound?
Everybody look what’s going down.
Stop, children, what’s that sound?
Everybody look what’s going down.

This is clearly Stephen Still’s masterpiece of his career and was of such impact that ATCO, the album’s label, re-released this first Buffalo Springfield album in March 1967, including this track. For this reason, its fair game to consider this album belonging to 1967.

Track listing of “Buffalo Springfield” [from Wikipedia]

March 1967 pressing side one
No.	Title	Writer(s)	Vocals	Length
1.	“For What It’s Worth” (Dec. 5)	Stephen Stills	Steve with Richie & Dewey	2:40
2.	“Go and Say Goodbye” (July 18)	Stephen Stills	Richie & Steve	2:20
3.	“Sit Down, I Think I Love You” (August)	Stephen Stills	Richie and Steve	2:30
4.	“Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing” (July 18)	Neil Young	Richie with Steve and Neil	3:24
5.	“Hot Dusty Roads” (August)	Stephen Stills	Steve with Richie	2:47
6.	“Everybody’s Wrong” (August)	Stephen Stills	Richie with Steve and Neil	2:25

March 1967 pressing side two
No.	Title	Writer(s)	Vocals	Length
1.	“Flying on the Ground Is Wrong” (September 10)	Neil Young	Richie with Steve and Neil	2:40
2.	“Burned” (August)	Neil Young	Neil with Richie and Steve	2:15
3.	“Do I Have to Come Right Out and Say It” (August)	Neil Young	Richie with Steve and Neil	3:04
4.	“Leave” (August)	Stephen Stills	Steve with Richie	2:42
5.	“Out of My Mind” (August)	Neil Young	Neil with Richie and Steve	3:06
6.	“Pay the Price” (August)	Stephen Stills	Steve with Richie	2:36

Personnel

Buffalo Springfield

Stephen Stills — vocals, guitars, keyboards
Neil Young — vocals, guitars, harmonica, piano
Richie Furay — vocals, rhythm guitar
Bruce Palmer — bass guitar
Dewey Martin — drums, backing vocals

As distinct and noteworthy as the first Buffalo Springfield album was, the second one is even better. Neil Young’s driving, anthem-like “Mr. Soul” opens the album and Young’s surreal “Broken Arrow” closes it. In between are additional songs by Young and Stephen Stills with three pretty good tracks authored by Richie Furay — one of these, “Good Time Boy”, arranged to include excellent horn-work by the Louisiana group, “the American Soul Train” This album is distinctly American, or more accurately, Canadian-American (Dewey Martin, Bruce Palmer and Neil Young being Canadian-born musicians), combining rock, folk, country and psychedelic-rock elements. One should also note David Crosby’s involvement in the Stephen Stills song, “Rock and Roll Woman”, which is predictive of Still’s later “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.”

Track listing [from Wikipedia]

Side one
No.	Title	Writer(s)	Vocals	Length
1.	“Mr. Soul“	Neil Young	Neil with Richie and Steve	2:49
2.	“A Child’s Claim to Fame”	Richie Furay	Richie with Steve and Neil	2:09
3.	“Everydays”	Stephen Stills	Steve with Richie	2:40
4.	“Expecting to Fly“	Neil Young	Neil	3:43
5.	“Bluebird”	Stephen Stills	Steve and Richie	4:28

Side two
No.	Title	Writer(s)	Vocals	Length
1.	“Hung Upside Down”	Stephen Stills	Richie and Steve with Neil and Richie	3:27
2.	“Sad Memory”	Richie Furay	Richie	3:01
3.	“Good Time Boy”	Richie Furay	Dewey	2:14
4.	“Rock and Roll Woman”	Stephen Stills	Steve with Richie and Neil	2:46
5.	“Broken Arrow“	Neil Young	Neil and Richie	6:14

Personnel

Buffalo Springfield

Stephen Stills — vocals, guitars, keyboards
Neil Young — vocals, guitars
Richie Furay — vocals, rhythm guitar
Bruce Palmer — bass guitar
Dewey Martin — vocals, drums

Additional personnel

James Burton — dobro on “A Child’s Claim to Fame”
Chris Sarns — guitar on “Broken Arrow”
Charlie Chin — banjo on “Bluebird”
Jack Nitzsche — electric piano on “Expecting to Fly”
Don Randi — piano on “Expecting to Fly” and “Broken Arrow”
Jim Fielder — bass on “Everydays”
Bobby West — bass on “Bluebird”
The American Soul Train — horn section on “Good Time Boy”

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Fifty Year Friday, Music, Rock

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Fifty Year Friday: Far Out 1967, Part One

Silver Apples of the Moon.jpg

Morton Subotnick, “Silver Apples of the Moon”

Morton Subotnick, one of the founders of California Institute of the Arts, co-founded San Francisco Tape Music Center in 1962 , left his teaching post a Mills College and moved to New York City and accepted an artist-in-residence position at the newly formed Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. His previous works and performances attracted the attention of the New York City based Nonesuch label, which provided Subotnick the opportunity to compose the very first electronic work commissioned by a record company. “Silver Apples of the Moon” was the result and quickly became a best selling “classical music” album and a staple of most university music libraries.

Classical music of that time, and electronic music in particular, generally was inaccessible and avoided traditional use of melody, harmony and rhythms to produce works that seemed more composed by chance, process or mathematical rules than to be products of the heart and soul. Subotnick breaks with this general trend, balancing the non-traditional sounds with an overall lightheartedness and whimsy, with the first side being more varied and the second side simpler, and somewhat less captivating, with use of rhythmic motifs and a less complex, varied texture and range of sound elements.

Track listing[from Wikipedia]

“Part A” – 16:33
“Part B” – 14:52

Personnel

Morton Subotnick – Buchla synthesizer, Liner Notes, Primary Artist
Bradford Ellis – Digital Restoration, Mastering, Remixing
Michael Hoenig – Mastering, Remixing
H.J. Kropp – Cover Design
Tony Martin – Illustrations

Mesmerizing-Eye_Psychedelia-A-Musical-Lightshow

The Mesmerizing Eye, “Psychedelia, a Musical Light Show”

As often the case in the sixties (1960’s rather than a reference to my age), the music produced by the “established” academic artists was often less compelling and relevant than than what was being done elsewhere. Here we have an album by the obscure band, The Mesmerizing Eye, that in my view has much more to say to the listener than Subotnick’s “Silver Apples of the Moon.” This is the only album released by The Mesmerizing Eye, and not clear to me if this was really a band, or if this album was a work of one or two people.

Musique concrète is a classification applied to music constructed by mixing various recorded sounds, sometimes environmental and urban sounds, sometimes such sounds with instruments added, but generally with the intent of creating an auditory experience that is produced from a mixture of disparate sounds, that have disparate associations, and that we traditionally hear in various and disparate contexts. This album draws heavily on that tradition, relying on the medium of tape for the assembly of the final product, yet unlike so many of these type of excursions layered onto tape, there is a general sense of order, meaning, and intent. The album is not only interesting and engaging, but the titles and back-cover liner notes provide additional context and clarity into the music’s relevance and purpose. For example, from the notes for the third track on side two, “The War for My Mind”: “Too many commercials on TV, too much telling us what to do — go to school, wear a tie, cut our hair. They want to control our mind.” Right on! This is classic 1967 anti-establishment philosophy! And, in terms of too many commercials and conformity to the onslaught of commercial messages, more relevant to us today than ever.

The tracks dissolve into each other, with a variety of instruments that varies from track to track. Instruments include church choir, church organ, church bells, piano, acoustic and electric guitar, trumpet, flute, bagpipes, calliope and additional instruments mixed with various background sounds (including the mandatory crying baby) on other tracks. Under twenty-five minutes, always moving forward with a sense of purpose, and making good use of it’s stereophonic capabilities, this little album leaves many of the works by established academia-blessed composers of the 1950’s and 1960’s in its dust. Difficult to find on LP, impossible to find on CD, this album is available on YouTube for those that don’t require lossless audio quality:

Tracklist (from discogs.com)

A1	Birth Of A Nation	2:42
A2	Rain Of Terror	2:26
A3	Tempus Fugit	2:09
A4	Opus 71	2:24
A5	Twenty-First Century Express	2:32
B1	May The Bird Of Paradise Fly Up Your Flute	2:10
B2	Requiem For Suzy Creamcheese	2:15
B3	The War For My Mind	1:54
B4	Dear Mom, Send Money	2:08
B5	Exercise In Frustration	2:07

Companies, etc.

Recorded At – Hollywood Sound Recorders

Credits

Composed By – The Mesmerizing Eye
Engineer – Jack Lees (2), Jesse Hodges
Producer, Arranged By – Hank Levine, Larry Goldberg

George Russell’s Othello Ballet Suite was recorded in Stockholm in one of the Radio Sweden studios on November 3rd and 4th 1967. At a little under 30 minutes, this work for orchestra and jazz musicians is performed by 23 musicians including several noteworthy Swedish jazz musicians and the Norwegians Jon Christensen on drums and Jan Garbarek on tenor sax. Sometimes majestic and beautiful, sometimes wild and exuberantly chaotic, sometimes showcasing individual soloing brilliance, sometimes a collective of orchestral anonymity, this work is adventurous, forward, and bordering on uncivilized, yet alluringly riveting, and mostly coherent.

Even further out is the companion work, “Electronic Organ Sonata No. 1” which was recorded in 1968. The piece is full of interesting textures and includes many interesting moments, but for me, falls short of the appeal of the ballet suite.

A digital version of the material on this LP is available as part of a 9 CD set, “George Russell ‎– The Complete Remastered Recordings On Black Saint & Soul Note.”

Tracklist (from www.discogs.com)

1	Othello Ballet Suite (Part I)
2	Othello Ballet Suite (Part II)
3	Electronic Organ Sonata No. 1

Credits

Alto Saxophone – Arne Domnerus*
Artwork By [Cover Painting] – Vic Kalin
Design – Bob Flynn*
Drums – Jon Christensen
Executive-Producer – Giovanni Bonandrini
Mixed By [Sound Mixer] – Gote Nilsson*
Orchestra – Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, The*
Organ, Producer, Composed By – George Russell
Remastered By – Dave Crawford*
Tenor Saxophone – Bernt Rosengren, Jan Garbarek
Trumpet – Rolf Eriksson

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Classical Music, Fifty Year Friday, jazz, Music, Rock

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Fifty Year Friday: Larry Young “Contrasts”; Joe Zawinul, “The Rise and Fall of the Third Stream”

Front Larry Young Contrasts

Trained in classical and jazz piano, playing as a teenager in R&B bands, then recording soulful jazz for the Prestige label as a leader, then switching to the Blue Note label, Larry Young records one strong album after another, including the innovative 1965 Unity album with Woody Shaw, Joe Henderson and Elvin Jones which includes a progressive jazz version of the exuberant victory march from Zoltan’s Kodaly’s opera, Háry János.

Young’s 1967 release, “Contrasts”, may not have the stellar personnel of Unity (Larry picks fellow Newark musicians that he knew or played with previously), but the musicianship and chemistry is excellent, and though “Contrasts” is not the classic that “Unity” is, it provides a magnetically engaging first side, and a diverse second side that includes a particularly evocative vocal sung by Althea Young (his wife, which as far as I know appears only one one other album, Young’s next Blue Note album), and ends with a free jazz track, “Means Happiness”. Per the liner notes, Young was particularly fond of this last track, which is based on the word “Hogogugliang.” Unfortunately, an internet search on this term returns no matches, and I can find nothing that elaborates on the purpose or meaning of this track, except for the liner notes, which simply just indicates that “Hogogugliang” means happiness and is derived from Eastern thought.

Fans of modern jazz will not want to miss hearing the first side of this album, or the very tender and beautifully soulful version of Tiomkin’s “Wild is the Wind.”

Track listing[from Wikipedia]

All compositions by Larry Young except as indicated.

“Majestic Soul” – 11:58
“Evening” – 7:12
“Major Affair” – 3:50
“Wild Is the Wind” (Dimitri Tiomkin, Ned Washington) – 4:31
“Tender Feelings” (Tyrone Washington) – 6:51
“Means Happiness” – 4:47

Personnel

Larry Young – organ
Hank White – flugelhorn (tracks 1, 2, 5-6)
Herbert Morgan, Tyrone Washington – tenor saxophone (tracks 1, 2, 5-6)
Eddie Wright – guitar (tracks 1 & 4)
Eddie Gladden – drums
Stacey Edwards – congas (tracks 1, 2, 4-5)
Althea Young – vocals (track 4)

William Fischer and Joe Zawinul were first introduced to each other in New Orleans, then, by chance, met a second time in Vienna (Zawinul judging an Austrian sponsored International Jazz Festival and Fischer working on an opera sponsored with a State Department grant), and then once again by chance, met a third time at the Apollo Theater in New York where the got to know each other a little bit. After some musical exploration together, in 1967, they recorded the music on “The Rise and Fall of the Third Stream” — the music composed and notated by William Fisher with one additional title composed by Austrian pianist and composer Friedrich Gulda. (Gulda also composed an interesting theme and variations on the Door’s “Light My Fire” and a Prelude and (jazzy) Fugue performed both by Gulda, and in an altered form during live concerts in the 1970’s, by Keith Emerson.)

Recorded in the latter part of 1967, beginning on October 16th, the “Rise and Fall of the Third Stream” is a thoughtfully composed and arranged album with a non-traditional string quartet (one bass, one cello and two violas), Joe Zawinul on piano, prepared piano, and electric piano, the composer, William Fischer on tenor sax, Jimmy Owens on trumpet, two hard bop jazz drummers, and classically trained Warren Smith on percussion.

Third Stream is the term composer Gunther Schuller coined for music that blends elements of jazz and classical together, or in Schuller’s words exists “about halfway between jazz and classical music”, including jazz-like improvisation. Although the title of this album seems to show a disdain for this term, the music embraces the concept fully, in the very best sense. This is an excellent album from first track to last.

Track listing[from Wikipedia]

“Baptismal” (William Fischer) – 7:37
“The Soul of a Village – Part I” (William Fischer) – 2:13
“The Soul of a Village – Part II” (William Fischer) – 4:12
“The Fifth Canto” (William Fischer) – 6:55
“From Vienna, With Love” (Friedrich Gulda) – 4:27
“Lord, Lord, Lord” (William Fischer) – 3:55
“A Concerto, Retitled” (William Fischer) – 5:30

Personnel

Joe Zawinul – Piano and electric piano
William Fischer – Tenor Saxophone and arrangements
Jimmy Owens – Trumpet
Alfred Brown – Viola
Selwart Clarke – Viola
Theodore Israel – Viola
Kermit Moore – Cello
Richard Davis – Bass
Roy McCurdy – Drums
Freddie Waits – Drums
Warren Smith – Percussion

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Fifty Year Friday, jazz, Music

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Fifty Year Friday: Procol Harum “Procol Harum and The Doors “Strange Days”

Procol 61rOC5OPccL

When I first heard Procol Harum’s “Whiter Shade Of Pale” single in the summer of 1967 on AM radio, I had assumed it was an older song, perhaps from the late 1950s. I was now twelve years old, but still musically very naive with no musical training except listening to AM radio and my very limited 45 collection assembled from the occasional 45 my grandfather gave me (he worked for Firestone and somehow he would sometimes get unused 45’s from the late 1950s) or from one of the few 45s my dad had purchased including two or three 45s of Ethel Merman and cast singing songs from “Annie Get Your Gun”, a Stan Kenton 45 of “Artistry in Rhythm” and a 45 with “Third Man Theme.”

“Whiter Shade of Pale” came and went on the Billboard charts, and I never gave the song or the group much thought, until later in life, when my next door neighbor brought over their “Grand Hotel” album. Well, better late than never, and eventually I purchased their “Salty Dog” album, the A&M reissue of the first album, and their album with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. This would be one of those rock groups that didn’t neatly fall into the progressive rock category, and one group that I was never particularly head-over-heels excited with, but I respected and appreciated for the well-written lyrics and well-crafted and arranged compositions.

Their first album, “Procol Harum”, was released around September 1967. The original North American version on Deram includes “Whiter Shade of Pale” and omits “Good Captain Clack”, (also found on the b-side of the “Homborg” single), however the A&M 1972 reissue includes all the tracks of the original UK album plus “Good Captain Clack.”

Gary Booker’s dark baritone voice, along with his keyboards, Matthew Fisher’s Cimmerian organ, Robin Tower’s expressive guitar work and the high quality of Keith Reid’s lyrics and Booker’s compositions make this an engaging album. Highlights include “Whiter Shade of Pale” (included on CDs and on the American LPs), “Conquistador” and “She Wandered Through the Garden Gate”, the guitar passages on “Cerdes” and “A Christmas Carol”, the organ and guitar in “Kaleidoscope”, the organ accompaniment and solos in “Salad Days”, and the Matthew Fisher composition, “Repent Walpurgis” which includes a Bach piano interlude and a couple of notable Trower guitar solos.

Track listing[from Wikipedia]

All tracks written by Gary Brooker and Keith Reid, except as noted.

Side A
No.	Title	Length
1.	“Conquistador“	2:42
2.	“She Wandered Through the Garden Fence” (two versions of this song were released—one with a “firm” ending, not a fade-out)	3:29
3.	“Something Following Me”	3:40
4.	“Mabel”	1:55
5.	“Cerdes (Outside the Gates Of)”	5:07

Side B
No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	“A Christmas Camel”		4:54
2.	“Kaleidoscope”		2:57
3.	“Salad Days (Are Here Again)” (from the film Separation, 1968)		3:44
4.	“Good Captain Clack”		1:32
5.	“Repent Walpurgis”	Matthew Fisher	5:05

US version

Side A
No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	“A Whiter Shade of Pale“	Brooker, Fisher, Reid	4:04
2.	“She Wandered Through the Garden Fence”		3:18
3.	“Something Following Me”		3:37
4.	“Mabel”		1:50
5.	“Cerdes (Outside the Gates Of)”		5:04

Side B
No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	“A Christmas Camel”		4:48
2.	“Conquistador”		2:38
3.	“Kaleidoscope/Salad Days (Are Here Again)”		6:31
4.	“Repent Walpurgis”	Fisher	5:05

German version

[show]Side A

[show]Side B

Personnel[edit]

Procol Harum

Gary Brooker – vocals, piano
Robin Trower – guitar (all but US 1)
Matthew Fisher – organ
Dave Knights – bass
B.J. Wilson – drums (all but US 1)
Ray Royer – guitar (US 1)
Keith Reid – lyrics

Additional personnel

Bill Eyden – drums (US 1)

Technical

Simon Platz – executive producer (for Fly Records)
Eddy Offord, Frank Owen, Gerald Chevin, Keith Grant, Laurence Burridge – engineer

1967 had plenty of colorful, bright shimmering bands providing technicolor, rainbow-glistening music with plenty of upper register sunlight. Procol Harum and the Doors provide a notably contrasting, distinctively dark, often gloomy, sound. They are more Mahler than Mozart, more Buxtehude than Vivaldi. Even the bright spots, “Like People Are Strange” on the Doors second album, absorbs more light than it radiates.

“Strange Days” opens up with a repeating pattern anticipating German space rock, seetting an austere bleakness that is carried throughout the album. The bass guitar intro that opens up “You’re Lost Little Girl” comes from dark subterranean underground caverns, supplemented by atmospheric and Morrison’s moog-synthesizer processed baritone vocals.

The dark, reflective music continues through the album. “Horse Latitude” breaks the mood as it is more indulgent than germane to the overall mood of the album. “People Are Strange” is more melodic and accessible, more catchy than indispensable, and more of a commercial single than an essential part of the album’s broad fabric, providing relief by breaking the general mood as well as providing an effective mood-based modulation to the upbeat “My Eyes Have Seen You.” Elements of dusk and darkness resume with “I Can’t See Your Face in My Mind” and are nicely concluded with the final track, a nearly 11 minute psychedelic, expansive “When the Music’s Over” with its moog synthesizer, organ and Fender Rhode’s piano bass.

The lyrics, are dark, but at times spirited and environmentally militant. Does Morrison foreshadow his death or the death of our environment?

“When the music’s over
When the music’s over
When the music’s over
Turn out the lights
Turn out the lights
Turn out the lights”
….
“Before I sink
Into the big sleep
I want to hear
I want to hear
The scream of the butterfly
…
“What have they done to the earth?
What have they done to our fair sister?
Ravaged and plundered and ripped her and bit her
Stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn
And tied her with fences and dragged her down

I hear a very gentle sound
With your ear down to the ground
We want the world and we want it…
We want the world and we want it…
Now
Now?
Now! “

…

Track listing[from Wikipedia]

All tracks written by The Doors (Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, and John Densmore).

Side A
No.	Title	Length
1.	“Strange Days“	3:11
2.	“You’re Lost Little Girl”	3:03
3.	“Love Me Two Times“	3:18
4.	“Unhappy Girl”	2:02
5.	“Horse Latitudes“	1:37
6.	“Moonlight Drive“	3:05

Side B
No.	Title	Length
7.	“People Are Strange“	2:13
8.	“My Eyes Have Seen You”	2:32
9.	“I Can’t See Your Face in My Mind”	3:26
10.	“When the Music’s Over”	10:58

Personal (from Wikipedia)

Jim Morrison – vocals, percussion, Moog synthesizer on track 1
Ray Manzarek – Vox Continental organ, Fender Rhodes piano bass on tracks 4 and 10, tack piano on tracks 6-8, harpsichord on track 3, backwards piano on track 4, marimba on track 9, backing vocals on track 7
Robby Krieger – guitar, backing vocals on track 7
John Densmore – drums, backing vocals on track 7

Additional musicians

Douglas Lubahn – bass guitar on tracks 1–3, 6–9

Technical

Paul A. Rothchild – production, backing vocals on track 7
Bruce Botnick – engineering, backing vocals on track 7
Joel Brodsky – cover photography
William S. Harvey – cover concept and art direction
Jac Holzman – production

(Note: Not credited in Wikipedia, but there is clearly a moog synthesizer on the last track, “When the Music’s Over.”)

Previous Fifty Year Friday Posts:

The Beatles

Fifty Year Friday: Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington

Arthur Rubinstein/Pink Floyd

Marta Argerich and Carlos Paredes

Jimi Hendrix

David Bowie, Marc Bolan, John’s Children

John Coltrane/Jefferson Airplane

Thelonious Monk/McCoy Tyner

Hindustani Classical Music

The Doors

The Velvet Underground

Aretha Franklin/Simon Dupree and the Big Sound

Mahler recordings

Rolling Stones

Zappa/Beefheart

Category:

Fifty Year Friday, Music, Progressive Rock, Rock

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Fifty Year Friday: Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington

Recorded in December 1966, released in June 1967, and winning a Grammy for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance – Large Group or Soloist with Large Group in 1968,”Far East Suite” is one of the finest concept albums of the 1960’s. A collaboration between Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington, as is the case with much of the Ellington catalog between 1939-1967, this work is a set of reflections of the Ellington band’s 1963 world tour that included visits to Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, and then later, their 1964 visit to Japan. All the music with the exception of the last track on the LP, “Ad Lib on Nippon”, is inspired by their 1963 exposure to locations of the Near East. This is not music based on music of those locations, but music inspired by impressions of these locations. The construction and quality of each composition blending crafted arrangements, colorful chords and chord voicings, and including solos that enhance and not detour from the arrangements, make this recording one of the gems of anyone’s LP or CD collection (the CD including alternative takes of tracks 1-3 and track 8.)

Track listing[from Wikipedia]

(All compositions by Ellington & Strayhorn except 9. by Ellington.)

“Tourist Point of View” – 5:09
“Bluebird of Delhi (Mynah)” – 3:18
“Isfahan” – 4:02
“Depk” – 2:38
“Mount Harissa” – 7:40
“Blue Pepper (Far East of the Blues)” – 3:00
“Agra” – 2:35
“Amad” – 4:26
“Ad Lib on Nippon” – 11:34

Personnel

Duke Ellington – piano
Mercer Ellington – trumpet, flugelhorn
Herbie Jones – trumpet, flugelhorn
William “Cat” Anderson – trumpet
Cootie Williams – trumpet
Lawrence Brown – trombone
Buster Cooper – trombone
Chuck Connors – trombone
Johnny Hodges – alto saxophone
Russell Procope – alto saxophone, clarinet
Jimmy Hamilton – tenor saxophone, clarinet
Paul Gonsalves – tenor saxophone
Harry Carney – baritone saxophone
John Lamb – double bass
Rufus Jones – drums

Billy Strayhorn initial inclinations were towards classical music, but the oppressive social barriers at the time made an entry into the classical realm much more difficult than one into the jazz world. Strayhorn was talented enough to excel in either, and given the nature of classical composition in the 1930s-1960s, it’s fair to comment that the more meaningful and relevant new music was being produced as jazz and not the “avant-garde” school music composed for the concert hall and academia, which received limited performance and provided limited commercial recognition and compensation.

Billy Strayhorn was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 1964, and bravely fought on, continuing to compose, even at the end when hospitalized, with his last year including works like “Blood Count” and “U.M.M.G. (Upper Manhattan Medical Group).” On May 31, 1967, he lived his last day in Billy Strayhorn’s body, but continued to survive through his arrangements, compositions and recordings, with this memorial album, “… And His Mother Called Him Bill”, a timeless work of deep love and respect from Mr. Ellington and his orchestra, providing an everlasting, very personal homage to this great 20th Century giant.

On the original LP, the last track is a fortuitously captured recording of Duke Ellington reflectively playing Strayhorn’s “Lotus Blossom” with bass player Aaron Bell, however the chance recording only has one working microphone and captures only the piano portion of this private performance. Later, a trio version of this was recorded, but the producer found the spontaneous version more emotional and selected that. Both versions are particularly poignant with the solo piano version more personal and the trio version more polished. One can get both versions either in the Duke Ellington Centennial Edition 24 CD set or in the most recent (2016) CD reissue. The tracks on the original LP are all excellent and transcend any stylistic classification. If you love listening to the very best music, whether classical, jazz, rock or anything else, and attentively, actively listen to music, not just having it on as background but diving deeply into its innermost fabric, then you will find this album enormously rewarding.

Original LP [from Wikipedia]

“Snibor” (Billy Strayhorn) – 4:16
“Boo-Dah” (Strayhorn) – 3:25
“Blood Count” (Strayhorn) – 4:16
“U.M.M.G. (Upper Manhattan Medical Group)” (Strayhorn) – 3:09
“Charpoy” (Strayhorn) – 3:05
“After All” (Strayhorn) – 3:28
“The Intimacy of the Blues” (Strayhorn) – 2:55
“Rain Check” (Strayhorn) – 4:34
“Day Dream” (Ellington, John La Touche, Strayhorn) – 4:18
“Rock Skippin’ at the Blue Note” (Ellington, Strayhorn) – 2:59
“All Day Long” (Strayhorn) – 2:56
“Lotus Blossom” (Strayhorn) – 3:52

2016 CD reissue

“Snibor” (Strayhorn) – 4:16
“Boo-Dah” (Strayhorn) – 3:28
“Blood Count” (Strayhorn) – 4:18
“U.M.M.G.” (Strayhorn) – 3:14
“Charpoy” (Strayhorn) – 3:07
“After All” (Strayhorn) – 3:52
“The Intimacy of the Blues” (Strayhorn) – 2:58
“Rain Check” (Strayhorn) – 4:37
“Day Dream ” (Ellington, Latouche, Strayhorn) – 4:25
“Rock Skippin’ at the Blue Note” (Ellington, Strayhorn) – 3:02
“All Day Long” (Strayhorn) – 2:58
“Lotus Blossom [Solo Version]” (Strayhorn) – 3:54
“Acht O’Clock Rock” (Ellington) – 2:23
“Rain Check [alternate take]” (Strayhorn) – 5:22
“Smada” (Ellington, Strayhorn) – 3:21
“Smada [alternate take]” (Ellington, Strayhorn) – 3:20
“Midriff” (Strayhorn) – 4:35
“My Little Brown Book” (Strayhorn) – 4:13
“Lotus Blossom [Trio Version]” (Strayhorn) – 4:56

Personnel

Duke Ellington – piano
Mercer Ellington – trumpet
Cat Anderson – trumpet
Herbie Jones – trumpet
Cootie Williams – trumpet
Clark Terry – flugelhorn
Lawrence Brown – trombone
Buster Cooper – trombone
Chuck Conners – bass trombone
John Sanders – valve trombone
Johnny Hodges – alto sax
Russell Procope – alto sax
Paul Gonsalves – tenor sax
Harry Carney – baritone sax
Aaron Bell – bass
Jeff Castleman – bass
Sam Woodyard – drums
Steve Little – drums (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)

Check out Must Listen To Music for recommendations of other classic works.

Previous Fifty Year Friday Posts:

The Beatles

Arthur Rubinstein/Pink Floyd

Marta Argerich and Carlos Paredes

Jimi Hendrix

David Bowie, Marc Bolan, John’s Children

John Coltrane/Jefferson Airplane

Thelonious Monk/McCoy Tyner

Hindustani Classical Music

The Doors

The Velvet Underground

Aretha Franklin/Simon Dupree and the Big Sound

Mahler recordings

Rolling Stones

Zappa/Beefheart

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