At 1:40 PM -0400 4/3/08, Darcy James Argue wrote:
On 3 Apr 2008, at 6:32 AM, dhbailey wrote:
Christopher Smith wrote:
On Apr 3, 2008, at 12:13 AM, Darcy James Argue wrote:
All I am saying is that a works suitability for reinterpretation
(whether its arranging, covering, remixing, making mashups, or
something else entirely) bears absolutely no relation to its
quality. Few people have tried to cover Coltrane's _A Love
Supreme_, and those that have tried have all failed very badly,
in my estimation.
Even Kenny Wheeler's version? It's pretty good, IMHO.
Though I completely agree with the sentiment.
Christopher
Then it's a pretty poor piece of music, if it depends more on the
personality of the performer than the quality of the music.
I couldn't possibly disagree more.
This is because, for me, the "piece of music" isn't the skeletal
lead sheet outline -- the lyrics, melody line and chord changes. The
"piece of music" IS the recording, and all the elements that go into
it, including not just the performance and the work but the
production, recording, mastering, etc.
I just realized that this is a classic generation gap! Yes, I can
well believe that to you, and probably to a generation on wither side
of yours, the recording is a complete work of art. But that has only
been the case since a specific point in time, and in terms of albums
rather than singles, that time was the release of the Sgt. Pepper
album in--I think--'67. (Real Beatles experts may name a different
album, but the phenomenon remains the same.) That was the first time
ANYONE had approached an entire album as a complete work of art
rather than a collection of "here's what we've been working on and
trying out, and you might enjoy some of it"!
I grew up at a time when songwriters were not performers and
performers were not songwriters. At a time when the recordings were
quite secondary to personal appearances. In the early '60s our
manager would not PERMIT us to record anything that we could not
reproduce in live performance. And when we appeared on TV, we didn't
lip synch to our recordings, we performed live, as did everyone else
in the business. Perhaps the clearest example was the old "Your Hit
Parade" show, first on radio (I think; not 100% sure) and then on TV.
Weekly they performed the top 10 songs or some other number. But ALL
of the performances were done by staff singers and a staff band.
They didn't invite the person(s) who made the hit recording onto the
show, and they certainly didn't just play their recordings.
And in that era, when live performance was real and recordings were
just for a little added income, you would expect that EVERY
PERFORMANCE WAS DIFFERENT in some way. That's absolutely the case in
regard to jazz, and we have to remember that every jazz recording
ever released represents ONE take, at one moment in time, and one out
of many possible interpretations. And I suspect that more than one
jazz artist has been pretty frustrated when their fans expected every
song to sound "just like the record"!
You're right, Darcy, in that your generation DOES consider the
recording the work of art. But to my generation (those of us who are
left!) it is PRECISELY the leadsheet that is the "real" work of art.
It REQUIRES interpretation, and for those of us in the business
that's what our business WAS!
As I said (and I think I understand where you're coming from a lot
better now), there's room for both outlooks in this wonderful, wide,
business of music, and I would never argue whether one approach is
better or worse or more valid than the other, just that they are
rather different approaches.
If a record, as a complete work, succeeds, then it succeeds, and I
don't care whether that's due to the "personality" of the
performance or not. There's more than one way to make a good record.
Although honestly, I'm having trouble thinking of any records I care
about that feature lackluster performances. As I have said before,
I'd *much* rather listen to a scorching Elvis performance of even a
mediocre song than a competent but uninspired recording of a Bach or
Beethoven masterwork.
Cheers,
- Darcy
-----
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brooklyn, NY
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
Finale@shsu.edu
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
--
John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music
Virginia Tech Department of Music
College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
Finale@shsu.edu
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
