The Rest Is Noise

Here's a before-I-started-reading-it black light picture of "The Rest Is Noise", Alex Ross' excellent history of 20th Century music. The dust jacket is a brilliant white - so pristine. At first I was afraid to touch it for fear of getting it dirty.


But I did. It's a good book about an interesting subject. Read it. Well written, filled with fascinating details, it reveals the often mysterious connections between music and society. The Rest Is Noise is not a book just for musicians. Anyone who's ever wondered why musicians think tritones are important will find it revealing.

THE MUSICAL OCEAN

The Rest Is Noise tells a long story. It gives an impression of twentieth century music as a musical "river". This noisy river carries us from one important composer to the next. Judging by the number of pages given them, Ross has focused our attention on just a few very important composers. [1]

I have no argument with his picks. The Important are all white males. (Duke Ellington squeaks into the top 35 or so.) There is significant over-representation of Jews and gays. They come from (or move to) Germany, France, Russia or New York, although Finland and England each get one. Ross clearly knows (and says several times) that composers come in other colors, genders and nationalities but these mostly get mere mentions.

I do feel that the subtitle "Listening to the 20th Century" is misleading. A book which really covered the entire history of ALL 20th century music would be very different. It would include all the other "rivers", not just the classical one, which drain into the music ocean. At the end of the century some of those other rivers seem more important to me than the classics. [2]

At the end of the century we have easy access to quantities and varieties of music that would have been simply incomprehensible a century ago. Today anyone can develop familiarity with lots of widely different musics. Our new found ability to teleport anywhere in the musical ocean at the click of an iPod is, in my opinion, the most hopeful part of the story of twentieth century music.

I've wondered before (in this post Rich Critic, Poor Critic; look near the end and in the comments) whether the title The Rest Is Noise means to subtly imply that some music is intrinsically better than other music, either overall or just within the classical sphere. Having now read the entire book I still wonder whether that's the intended subtext of this book.



POLITICS OF MUSIC

The way Ross takes a full century filled with curious musical ideas of quirky musicians and ties them into social and political history of the real world is the book's best part.

Politics - whether between waring nations or waring music theories - has had a profound affect on music. Music has never really had any power to cause change (in spite of what Neil Young says [3]). The Rest Is Noise is filled with stories of composers who reinvent themselves and their music following the winds of the political aesthetics or aesthetic politics.

The middle section of The Rest Is Noise very trenchantly devotes a chapter each to the politicizing of music in Soviet Russia, the United States and Nazi Germany during the 1930's and 40's. [4]

The one politician who most influenced the course of twentieth century music was probably Adolph Hitler. He made classical music a weapon of social control in Nazi Germany. [5] After the war the Allies used his own weapon to help denazify the country. [6]

In the 50s a new enemy was agreed upon and the U.S. turned our musical firepower against the Soviets. Secret CIA money funded parts of the European avant-garde during the Cold War. This was supposed to show the rest of the world how the West enjoyed greater freedom. [7] Even later, in the backlash to all that CIA musical ordnance, minimalism took root.

Thanks a lot Adolph. The results of your interest in Wagner operas are still exerting a small effect on musical life today. The story of 20th century music would be a lot different if you had just had the same level of interest as Dubya does now.

Along with politics, Ross often dwells on large scale dramatic works (by which I mean operas; think Salome, Lulu or Peter Grimes). He susses out meaning in the music by deconstructing plot and characters. These are not my personal musical pillars of the century. For me these were the slowest parts of The Rest Is Noise. [8]

HOPING FOR REVISIONISM

Ross's 20th century music narrative breaks down at the end. It's as if the river delta spreads out over so much area that no direction of flow is obvious. This is because we lack the benefit of hindsight. It's not yet certain who will be crowned as the end-of-century classical music heroes. Musical history is filled with forgotten once-famous success stories and deified reanimated living failures. Some contemporary composers will undoubtedly become one or the other.

So, at the end of The Rest Is Noise Ross understandably resorts to musical name dropping, giving us long lists of current well-known composers. I hope he rewrites this ending in about 20 years when there's general agreement over who actually ascends to the pantheon of musical importance. Those are the artists whose musical idea future composers will be forced to deal with.

Will those new composer heroes still be white and male? Probably. Will they be exclusively French, German, Russian or New Yorkers? Possibly. Will the story still exclude all other types of music besides the classical tradition. I hope not. But some things, I fear, never change.


Footnotes:

[1] Using a very rough guide (the number of lines - not the number of references - in the index) the top 35 individuals (not all are composers) in The Rest is Noise pantheon are: Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, Dimitri Shostakovich, Aaron Copland, Benjamin Britten, Olivier Messiaen/Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler/Sergei Prokofiev, Bela Bartok/Jean Sibelius, Kurt Weill, John Cage/Richard Wagner, Alban Berg/Claude Debussy/George Gershwin, Anton Webern/Paul Hindemith/Pierre Boulez, Charles Ives, Bertolt Brecht/Karlheinz Stockhausen/Leonard Bernstein/Virgil Thompson, Adolf Hitler/Gyorgy Ligeti/Josef Stalin/Morton Feldman/Philip Glass/Steve Reich, Duke Ellington/Leos Janacek/Ludwig van Beethoven/Thomas Mann. (The slash indicates a tie.)

[2] To cover everything it would probably take equally large century-spanning essays on jazz (which has become another "classical" music), rock 'n roll, pop music, world music, music theater and musical technology. By technology I mean all manner of recording gadgets, reproduction formats and distribution schemes, from acoustic recording to 8 tracks to Napster. Maybe some of these books already exist.

[3] Click here to read about Neil Young who recently said "I think that the time when music could change the world is past." That time never happened. Famous musicians can delude themselves into thinking they cause change. In Neil Young's time music didn't change anything - it merely followed as the world changed around it. These days, unfortunately, only capitalism and religion have power to cause real change - and not necessarily for the better (all this is in my opinion, of course).

[4] A fine movie about the clash of politics, music and corporate philanthropy during WPA America is Cradle Will Rock by Tim Robbins.

[5] But Hitler really couldn't control jazz music the way he did classical. See the book Different Drummers, Jazz in the Culture of Nazi Germany by Michael H. Kater.

[6] Another movie to watch: Taking Sides about a U.S. Army officer who has to decide whether Wilhelm Furtwangler deserves to return to his job conducting the Berlin Philharmonic.

[7] Read Who Paid The Piper, The CIA and the Cultural Cold War by Frances Stonor Saunders which deals with many arts not just music. I personally find this story highly amusing: to discover as an adult that the avant-garde composer heroes of my education and early career, whose work contributed heavily to my own aesthetics, were artificially promoted for dubious political reasons far beyond any possible public acceptance of their actual work. No wonder audiences hate 20th century music - it's all a secret government conspiracy. Ha.

[8] In my own mixed musical manifesto (read it here, scroll down) I suggest that real music doesn't have lyrics. I wonder: could an opera be written which has NO lyrics?

[9] I took the picture of the bust of Henry Cowell in the Stanford music library. Cowell would been in the top 50 if I'd extended the list in footnote 1. The other guy is my absolutely favorite 20th century chamber music composer (because his best work easily rivals Bartok or Messiaen) who didn't get a single mention in The Rest Is Noise.

Read The New Yorker and the Hero Composer In Los Angeles, a previous MM post discussing Alex Ross' New Yorker article about Esa-Pekka Salonen. Click here to read how my picture appeared in Ross' blog The Rest Is Noise which has audio samples to accompany the book here.


Noise Tags: The Rest Is Noise. . . Alex Ross. . . composers. . . classical music. . . twentieth century music. . . Adolph Hitler. . . CIA

And the Ocker goes to ... me!

I'd like to thank the Academy for this honor. I'd also like to thank my Mother who made me an Ocker by marrying my Dad, and his father who changed his name at Ellis Island.

Even though I won this signal honor because I voted for myself (and I'm the only eligible voter) - the massive free publicity and huge increase in profits is well worth the trouble.

We winners of an Ocker enjoy longer lifespans. And when everyone recognizes us on the street we go into politics (in spite of knowing nothing).

The public certainly seems happy watching the glitz and glamour; they'd better be, because that's all they get.

Oscar Romero Awards
Oscar Mathisen Award
Oscar Peterson Awards
Oscar B. Hunter Memorial Award
Oscar Robertson trophy
Oscar Wilde Award
Oscar Wilde Award
Oscar Bruneman Awards
Oscar Foundation National Awards
Oscar Sattelite Communications Achievement Award
l'Oscar de Emballage
Oscar awards for dogs
Oscar de la Hoya
Oscar the grouch
Oscar Straus
Oscar Homolka
Oscar disambiguation
Other Oscars

Ocker Tags: Ocker. . . awards. . . academy

30 Second Spots - Laugh Track

Here's Laugh Track featuring vocalist Peter Sellars. This has been up at my MOG blog for over a month which means I'm a month behind in my blogging.

75 seconds - copyright (c) 2008 David Ocker

Somewhere in the left column of Mixed Meters are links to mp3s of my own music. Yes, I'm a failed composer but I continue to write music.

Some of those left-column links have not worked recently because Earthlink, provider of slow intermittent overpriced DSL service, saw fit to discontinue the storage service I was using to provide them to you.

This has now been fixed - no thanks to Earthlink. All links to my music should be functioning. (If you find one that doesn't please let me know.)

I doubt anyone missed access to this music. Here's a list of the reappeared tracks. Remember, there are no excerpts at Mixed Meters: all mp3s are complete, unedited, unexpurgated and incomprehensible. I've provided a tag line for each piece to accentuate your listening incomprehension.

All Music (c) (p) David Ocker
Click titles to listen:

Electronic Pieces

(Remember, I write this stuff on a laptop at Starbucks so it can't be any good.)

The Real Jejune Vasectomy (2'41")
Here is actual Mixed Meters' reader fan art for The Real Jejune Vasectomy provided by Mixed Meters' reader and artist Eric N. Peterson.

20 Balls in My Fingers and I'm Not Done Yet (0'34")
Melody and title both came to me in a dream.

Bill Kraft's San Francisco Waltz Toon (1'20")
AFAIK, Bill has never listened or danced to this music.

The Boy Scout Copyright Police (2'53")
Three 30 Second Spots in one. Inspired by the musical excerpt on the Boy Scout Respect Copyright badge

In A Pissy Mood (4'42")
Pissy music inspired either by pissy cats or pissy people. You pick.

The On and Off Topic Blues for Alex (2'48")
Two related pieces ("On Topic" and "Off Topic") inspired by the desire to avoid a boring composers salon.

Thinking With Other People's Words (8'29")
A meditation on being manipulated by politicians. Vocals by Dub-yah.

The Best Thing About Led Zeppelin (4'03")
Play it loud to understand why Leslie calls this "the scary piece". The title is a trick question - there is NO best thing about Led Zeppelin.

Not So Cuckoo Cuckoo (3'31")
The familiar samba, Tico Tico, Ockerized. I'd like to see someone dance to this music. Ha ha.

Jingle Bulls (3'51")
The familiar Christmas tune, Ockerized.

Jungle Bells (3'29")
The same familiar Christmas tune, Ockerized differently.

That's It, No More (0'33")
Your Host Rex is the vocalist.

The Manuscript Ends Abruptly (0'52")
Based on unfinished Schubert, this piece is dedicated to the memory of the late LA Times music critic Daniel Cariaga.

Ancient Clarinet Performances

The first three are live recordings from my New Music America '85 recital.

The Allegro Fourth Movement from the Symphony Number 3 in F Opus 90 by Johannes Brahms by David Ocker (8'51")
Bass Clarinet Solo - yes, I put my own name in the title.

At Sixes and Sevens (4'22")
Bass Clarinet improvisation

Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies (2'26")
by P.I. Tchaikovsky, arranged and performed by David Ocker on bass clarinet. This was the encore.

Voluntary Solitude (13'04")
A failure at the one attempted live performance, this is a piece from my graduate music studies in 1976 - for clarinet and live electronics. Studio recording.

Over 68 minutes of music!! If that's not enough, go to my MOG blog

I really do like to get comments, preferably positive. Please comment.

Find other art by Eric N. Peterson here and here and here.


Ockerized Tags: David Ocker. . . composer. . . mp3. . . 30 Second Spots. . . Peter Sellars. . . Earthlink

Reach for the Sky

I've been following two Pasadena "photo-a-day" blogs. One is Pasadena Daily Photo. The other is the sky is big in pasadena (yes, written all in lower case)

I post many pictures of Pasadena also, both here and on Mixed Messages- although I would never consider the ritual of posting something every single day. Whenever I feel like it is my way.

the sky is big in pasadena included this wide picture of a church steeple shot from Colorado Blvd. facing south. I happen to have several pictures of that same steeple taken from the parking lot facing east. It's a fascinating ornate gothic copper-toned crossless phallus presumptuously reaching for the sky. Probably it inspires shock and awe.


Closing in on some details.


An Escher-esque corner of the church. I remember playing a concert of music by Arnold Schoenberg in that church in 1974 or 1975. Possibly that was my very first visit to Pasadena.


I couldn't resist this parking lot shot. (No, that's not the real license plate number.)



View this location in Google Maps. The Street View feature is active for this spot - but not terribly interesting.

I think this is the church's website.

Mixed Meters' pictures of Pasadena City Hall.

Click any picture to enlarge.


Steeple Tags: church steeple. . . Pasadena church. . . Colorado Boulevard. . . First United Methodist. . . architectural details. . . The Rapture. . . Truth About Darwin

The Curious Symbology of the Sick Old Clock

I'm not used to being ill. Right now I've got some untreatable viral crud that

• makes me cough uncontrollably like a sailor,
• makes my throat feel like the cats are using it as a scratching box
• makes snot run unaided out of my nostrils, over my lip and into my mouth.

"Drink lots of fluids and get plenty of rest" was the doctor's mantra.


Here are pictures of a clock in my office - it's a Micronta Timer, sold by Radio Shack - an electronic on and off box that I've had, oh, since the eighties.


I used it to turn on tape recorders and radio receivers automatically at precise times to record radio broadcasts I couldn't otherwise listen to. This was well before the Internet, back when local radio still had the occasional interesting bit.


Some time ago Mr. Micronta Timer started displaying time in new, creative ways. These pictures demonstrate the curious symbology if offers me.


There's no way to predict the display pattern It still seems to work because the time changes every minute just like a real clock, but it offers no meaning. It has become an abstract artist of temporal display, creating a little visual decoration in its old age with the limited means available to it.


This week, the clock also reminds me that, while I will recover from my illness, it won't. Maybe this will prompt me to finally throw it away. Assuming I ever get my normal level of energy back.


Notice several other unused relics of '80s office automation in the last picture: a Panasonic electric pencil sharpener and a Technics cassette dubbing deck, both of which still work if I ever care to use them - which, judging by the dust levels, is almost never.




Sick Old Tags: clock. . . electronic timer. . . Micronta. . . Radio Shack. . . electric pencil sharpener. . . illness. . . symbology

Unqualified For President

California will hold a strange Presidential primary election Tuesday. Strange because the nominee is not already a foregone conclusion. We registered Democrats get to decide between Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards. You registered Republicans choose between Mitt Romney, John McCain and Mike Huckabee.


Here's a quote from the radio version of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (Secondary Phase, part 6, starting at about 18 minutes 40 seconds) spoken by The Book (the voice of Peter Jones):

The major problem -- one of the major problems, for there are several -- one of the MANY major problems with governing people is that of who you get to do it. Or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.

To summarize, it is a well known and much lamented fact that those people who most want to rule people are ipso facto those least suited to do it.

To summarize the summary, anyone who is capable of getting themselves made president should on no account be allowed to do the job.

I was reminded of Douglas Adams' monumentally and hysterically accurate observation by an equally accurate but deadly un-funny editorial entitled "Why They Really Run" by Michael Kinsley. Here's a quote:

When you hear the presidential candidates carrying on about democracy and freedom, do you ever wonder what they would be saying if they had been born into societies with different values?

What if Mitt Romney had come to adulthood in Nazi Germany?

What if Hillary Clinton had gone to Moscow State University and married a promising young apparatchik?

What if Barack Obama had been born in Kenya, like his father, where even now people are slaughtering one another over a crooked election?

Which of them would be the courageous dissidents, risking their lives for the values they talk about freely—in every sense—on the campaign trail? And which would be playing the universal human power game under the local rules, whatever they happened to be?

Without naming names, I believe that most of them would be playing the game. What motivates most politicians, especially those running for President, is closer to your classic will-to-power than to a deep desire to reform the health-care system.

In my opinion no candidate, Clinton or Obama or Romney or McCain or Huckabee, is really qualified to become President. I'm sure that having served in the U.S. Senate is helpful to a President. But if that is the only real entry in your resume you're not ready yet.

Likewise, if you've been a state Governor but never worked a top-level government job in Washington, you're equally unqualified.

Please, no more presidents who learn on the job.


Here is the list of qualifications I look for in a President:

1. legislative experience on both the state and national levels: (get elected senator and representative a few times)
2. executive experience on both state and national levels:( get elected governor or mayor of some megalopolis and also get yourself appointed cabinet secretary of something or other)
   
3. be the Vice-President (a nice touch to your resume but not absolutely necessary because so few people get to be Vice.)
   
4. real experience in international relations (hold a major ambassadorship and negotiate a trade treaty or two)
5. run a business (this is NOT a sufficient qualification. Anyone who thinks they can run the country with a background only in corporate America is a darn fool. Ross Perot and Steve Forbes were spectacularly unqualified presidential candidates)
6. run your political party (know how to manipulate the system, make deals, scratch backs and hide scandals)
7. a good liar (Presidents must convince the citizens, our allies and our enemies that everything is under control - even when we know it isn't - and that we will damn well do what we say - even when we know we won't)
   
8. be a good media-savvy speaker (yep, being a movie star is exceptionally good training for a future President)
   
9. be capable of changing your mind (apparently there's an unwritten law which requires politicians to adhere to immutable principals of behavior. This is called "knee jerk" - like "no new taxes". These are usually derived from unprovable tenets of religious faith and economics. The President is free to privately believe anything he or she wants - but like the rest of us she or he should leave those ideas at home before going to work.)
   
10. learn to apologize for mistakes (another unwritten law prevents Presidents from admitting they were wrong. There is no doctrine of infallibility for Presidents like there is for Popes. You're just this guy, you know.)

Some things are NOT qualifications, no matter what.


Being married to a former President is NOT a qualification.

Going to church, intense religious faith and straight-jacket morality are bad qualities for presidents. I want a President who could have an extra-marital affiar whether they choose to cheat on their spouse or not I want a President who will cheat and lie and steal - for the benefit of the entire country of course - and not get caught.

No one will have ALL of this preparation but can't we find someone who scores higher than 1 or 2?


Having someone who agrees with me on a few issues would be nice icing on the candidate.

Using these standards the most qualified candidate in 2008 recently dropped out of the race. His name was Bill Richardson.

I'm not the least bit surprised by Richardson's lack of success. Most people want a tall handsome President who makes us feel good. A movie star or talk show host. That's no way to run a country.


In my continuing effort to throw my votes away on principle, I'm going to vote for Richardson anyway on Tuesday. He might have a chance at being picked for Vice. If Dick Cheney can be the devil incarnate just a heartbeat from the Presidency, maybe Richardson can have some angelic positive effects.

MUSICAL QUALIFICATIONS FOR PRESIDENT


Someone named Joe Queenan (described as a "New York-based writer") wrote an editorial pronouncing Mike Huckabee unfit to be President because of his choice of musical instrument - the electric bass. Here's a quote:

The president of the United States is the most powerful man in the world, just as the conductor is the most important person in the orchestra, just as the lead guitarist is the most important musician in the band. The bass guitarist, I'm afraid, is more like the Commerce secretary or Uncle Fred, a solid, dependable fellow but definitely not the guy you want with his finger on the red button. Bass players are too bland and dull to run a society as classy as this one.

Joe Queenan has got it completely backwards. In my opinion, a bass player has an awful lot of qualities that we should expect from our President.

• bass players must know the structure of the tune
• bass players play the entire show, every tune, non-stop
• bass players need to be solid; they "lay it down" and then "keep it together"
• bass players help the other musicians sound good
• bass players don't demand the spotlight

Having a Pres with some of these qualities would be a wonderful change for the better. The President is a Suit not a Star. A functionary. A servant of the people. If the President can keep the inner workings of the country solid, the stuff on top ought to come out okay.


Fortunately, musical talent is not a qualification that anyone should consider in picking a candidate. But if it were, Mike Huckabee would be the man for the job. That's the only way I would ever possibly consider supporting him.


A previous MM post, including this picture of Dick Nixon, discusses Artistic Politicians. The world would have been a better place of Nixon had stayed a second violin.

The Huckabee picture came from here.

President Jimmy Carter once "sang" Salt Peanuts at a White House jazz concert. Here and here and here are articles which mention this event in no detail whatsoever. But I heard the broadcast. Carter sucked as a singer. The last link also mentions that President Richard Nixon once played Happy Birthday on the piano for Duke Ellington.

Mixed Meters predicts the winner in November: John McCain or Mitt Romney. The Democratic candidate is going to get swift-boated into a historical footnote (unless some 3rd party right wing candidate siphons off votes Perot-sytle.)

Addendum: the current White House chief-of-staff (quick, can you name him?) also plays bass guitar in a rock band. Click here or here.

Swiftboat Tags: California Primary. . . Super Tuesday. . . Hillary Clinton. . . Barack Obama. . . John McCain. . . Mitt Romney. . . Mike Huckabee. . . Bill Clinton. . . electric bass. . . tenor sax. . . musical president. . . Michael Kinsley. . . Joe Queenan. . . Zaphod Beeblebrox. . . Jimmy Carter. . . Salt Peanuts. . . 2008 presidential election. . . Joshua Bolten

Out To Lunch (aka Ben Watson)

I'm cleaning my office to promote good work habits. To that end I'm trying to throw out no-longer-needed clutter, including printouts of online articles which I find easier to read on paper than on monitor.

Other than this introduction this post will have no original writing by me (and no photographs). What it will have is several quotes which I highlighted in a scholarly paper given by Out To Lunch (aka Ben Watson), author of The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play and master of Zappa talk and double talk, to the International Conference of Esemplastic Zappology.

Surrounding these little bits of wisdom his paper/speech contains some fine opportunities to reflect on the differences between

• England and America
• musicians and academics
• a bunch of isms and a bunch of other isms
• the common language that divides the United States and Great Britain.

That having been said, I give you Ben Watson:

... Zappa's work is exciting because his art is not the product of an ideology or theory, it wrinkles and overlaps and concentrates bits of the material world so that the whole universe may be viewed in it upside down, tiny, like the image inside the convex mirror in the parlour of your great aunt in Chingford ...

... Zappa's albums present such an outlandish splice of complete madness and cutting sanity that he forces the listener to speculate about the relativity of madness and sanity, the dialectical involvement of opposites like order and chaos, rationality and irrationality. ...

... Zappa wanted to make an art consisting entirely of "sin" - of unabstracted, specific, personal expressions unrepressed by any generalised archetypes. That's why the records he produced are so delightfully knotty, gnarly and pleasing, even when you can't understand a word - and once you've worked out all the ingredients of "Debra Kedabara", all the stuff about B movies, Mexican rubber masks and dental flossers, you're really no wiser. Why did he put all that junk in there? Because it resists the abstract concept! ...

Esemplastic Tags: Ben Watson. . . Frank Zappa. . . abstraction

Snow in Places

We're having what we call "winter" in Southern California - a period of steady heavy rainstorms. This is remarkable because we've skipped winter for the last several years. Last year was the driest on record.

Here's a newspaper pummeled by rain on a bed of greens.



When it rains down in our valley (the San Gabriel Valley not the birthplace of Valley Girls), it often snows at higher elevations. However, we can see higher elevations including Mount Wilson which towers above us. It's 5710 feet above wherever they measure from.

The clouds broke briefly this afternoon, suns shone, patches of blue sky were visible and, indeed, there was snow on high ground. You'll have to click and scroll this picture as it is quite wide.



Snow Tags: San Gabriel Valley. . . California weather. . . Mount Wilson. . . rain. . . snow

Sousaphones on the Beach in Art and Advertising

In March, 2006, a Mixed Meters post entitled On the Religion of the Past and the Future included this picture from a perfume ad, a scratch'n-sniff insert from our Sunday paper. The picture shows a beautiful skinny topless woman in bright red pants sitting on a stool on a beautiful white sand beach as waves played about her feet. Unremarkable except that she is wrapped in a sousaphone.

The text reads:

LIFE IS HOW YOU CHANGE IT - 360°
Perry Ellis Fragrance - Robinson's/May

Maybe she's a member of an all girl topless marching band and synchronized swim team.

Here's another magazine ad from Playboy, September 1964. We see a different beautiful skinny model, not topless but wearing a skimpy bikini, while sitting side saddle on the back of a red Honda scooter. She too is wearing a sousaphone. Maybe she's on the way to a gig at the beach and the guy in the suit is the band director.


(Click any picture for an enlargement. The text of this ad is included at the end of this post so Google's bots can enjoy it too.)

The similarity of elements in these two pictures - pretty girl, sousaphone, references to the beach plus a bright red visual accent - are probably just a coincidence.

Here are two other pictures of art, one created with a sousaphones the other with a tuba (which is a sousaphone twisted differently.)

I took the first one at an art gallery in Carmel California which overlooks the Pacific. Another beach reference. The second one was sent to me by I don't remember who. I do seem to remember that it is from the garden of a local tubist - but again I don't remember who. It's not on the beach but there's plenty of water.




The Honda ad:

Some tootin'

She likes to blow her own horn.

And she's got the displacement for it, too: 90cc compression ratio 8:1. And hits 6.5 hp at 8000 rpm.

There's a lot of lungpower for a lightweight.

What's more, she tops 55 mph without pressing. Delivers 165 miles to a gallon of gas. She's a four-stroker, OHV aircooled, of course, with a 4-speed foot shift. Never fails to meet you more than halfway.

Look for the new Honda 90. Always hits the right note.

For address of your nearest dealer or other information, write: American Honda Motor Co., Inc., Dept. CX, 100 West Alondra, Gardena, California.

HONDA world's biggest seller!

Here and here and here and here are links to a few women who play the tuba. I wonder what they think of the sousaphone/beach-bunny ads.

Read about the video game Sousaphone Hero

Tuba Tags: Tuba. . . sousaphone. . . Honda scooter. . . Perry Ellis 360°. . . women tubists

Like Cats and Dogs

If I don't post a certain number of pictures of our pets I might lose my blogging license. So, here are some recent images of "the tails".









Pet Tags: pet pictures. . . cats. . . dogs

Paradise, Pomp and Puppets - Performing Zappa's Orchestra Music

I wanted to call this post "Seeking Stephanie Zimmerman".

I can hear you ask "Who is Stephanie Zimmerman? Why is she relevant to the subject of Frank Zappa's orchestra pieces?"

All you need to know now is that I'm using her name to create some artificial dramatic tension. You'll have to read on to find out "what's the deal".

ANYWAY....

As my three readers must know by now, I worked for Frank Zappa during his "late middle period" beginning just after the break with Warner Brothers and ending a year or so after he acquired the Synclavier. That's roughly 1977 to 1984.

Mostly I worked on his music for conventional acoustic ensembles - meaning pieces for symphony orchestra. I'm grateful for the opportunities he provided me. I learned many things; much of it still useful in my current life.

When Frank passed away in 1993 I realized that I would get one final opportunity from Frank. I would have a chance to watch Frank Zappa find his posthumous place in the history of music.

Clearly his music will not be forgotten; there's too much of it. Equally clearly, as a maverick musician balanced between wildly different genres, he will not be regarded as a seminal influence. Zappa will not be another Beethoven, Wagner, Stravinsky or Schoenberg. Even so, his fans, together with the academic establishment, together with professional musicians, together with his heirs will create a "Zappa legacy" of some sort or other.

Using a roughly normal lifespan for myself I calculated that I had between 30 and 40 years to observe this process. I'm now near the midpoint. Things can still go either way.

My principal interest involves the pieces I worked on. If those pieces are accepted into the repertoire of orchestras and embraced by their audiences then Frank's legacy will not rest merely on his (not inconsiderable) activities as bandleader, guitarist, songwriter and (anti)social commentator. Instead he could be remembered the same way I saw him during his lifetime. That's the way he ought to be remembered: as a composer.

No matter what happens serious-composer-wise, all his albums and concerts and the stories about what he did and said will leave quite a legacy. But things won't be the same if he doesn't get that "serious composer" label. The difference is between entering the 250-year history of all Western Music or being a big fish in the 60-year pond of rock and roll.

Which would you prefer if you had the choice?


Three concerts of Frank Zappa's orchestra music have occupied my attention lately:

• Dupree in L.A
• Bogus in Budapest and
• Seeking Stephanie Zimmerman.

1) THE LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC PERFORMS DUPREE'S PARADISE

On May 15, 1970, the Los Angeles Philharmonic performed a concert entitled Contempo 70 at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion. On that concert, along with Frank and the Mothers, the orchestra performed music from 200 Motels

Apparently no one went home from Contempo 70 happy - apart from the audience. Since my arrival in Los Angeles in 1974 I've heard stories of that night from many different people - including composer Mel Powell (who stopped the performance of his piece half way through). Recently my wife Leslie told me, for the first time, that she had attended that concert.

This January 5th and 6th the Philharmonic played Dupree's Paradise, a piece of Frank's for medium-sized instrumental ensemble. It represents the first Zappa performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic since the 1970 Pauley concert.

I'm aware of a few go-nowhere discussions between Frank and the Phil about possible performances in the intervening 37 years. The fact that our local orchestra finally played a bit of Zappa, even one of his easier ones, after all this time seems remarkable and positive.

Maybe things have settled down enough that the Zappa orchestra pieces can be regarded for what they are rather than for what the composer says or does surrounding the performance. I spoke to one Philharmonic member who performed in both concerts: 200 Motels in 1970 and Dupree's Paradise this month. She didn't talk about the music but she did remember several offensive things which Frank said or did at Pauley Pavilion.

For this program in 2008 Dupree's Paradise was squeezed between larger orchestra pieces. It got normal rehearsal time - almost none - but everyone was well prepared and the LA Philharmonic proved its brilliance once again.

The conductor David Robertson urged the players to achieve a proper Zappaesque feel by using some interesting images. In one spot, to enhance a string color change, he suggested that they think of "someone fiddling with the tone controls of an old radio." In another he said the music should sound like "Webern on a variable speed tape deck."

But there wasn't time for any experimentation during rehearsal (there never is) - and the music was unfamiliar all around. During Frank's lifetime he repeatedly said the only requirement for his music was that the performers play exactly what he wrote on the paper; Zappa didn't want his music "interpreted" by performers. Since that's what performers are trained to do, his comments weren't always received in the best humor.

Of course he hardly ever heard note perfect performances. My own experiences playing his music indicated that once I could play exactly what he had written (or at least get damn close) he responded well to interpretation.

Several times I remember him complimenting a performance by saying "That really talks." You know how actors and dancers (and just about everyone else) say that a good performance "sings". It's hyperbole because usually no actual singing is involved.

A high compliment from Frank Zappa was when he said that you had made the music "talk".

I think Frank would have had to admit that the LA Philharmonic performance of Dupree's Paradise accurately represented what he wrote on the page.

But it did not "talk".


There are moments of romance in Dupree's Paradise that needed some loving. There are moments of humor that needed comic pacing. And there times where I think the music needs a big, old-fashion luftpause. A short wait, a fraction of a second out of tempo that will let everyone in the audience catch their breath and give them time to notice that something new is about to begin. That's what performers do in music of Beethoven, Wagner, Stravinsky and Schoenberg. They should do it in music of Frank Zappa too.

On this Philharmonic program of larger pieces Dupree receded into the background. It was probably not the best choice to end the first half. Better to have begun either half with it. But that by itself wouldn't have brought Dupree's Paradise to life. The audience, like the orchestra, received Dupree's Paradise politely - and everyone went on to the next victim.

The concert was recorded for iTunes. If you weren't at the concert you'll be able to listen yourself and disagree with me for some good reason.

One side note: the final piece was Edgard Varese's Ameriques - a piece for humungus orchestra. It barely fit onto the Wells Fargo Stage (yep that's the "stage name" of the stage inside the Ron Burkle Ralph's Food-For-Less Foundation Auditorium inside Walt Disney Concert Hall.)

The Ameriques orchestra is still quite a bit smaller than the orchestra for Frank Zappa's massive shoe-symphony Sinister Footwear. I wonder how they could squeeze enough players onto the Wells Fargo Stage to ever perform Sinister Footwear. I'd like to see them try.





2) BOGUS POMP ON THE RADIO IN BUDAPEST: 100% ZAPPA

Thanks to the really fine Zappa blog called Kill Ugly Radio I became aware of an all Frank Zappa orchestra concert by conductor Adam Fischer leading the Hungarian Radio Orchestra (the MR Symphony Orchestra) in Budapest Hungary on October 13, 2007. It was entitled 100% Zappa. It was one of three concerts devoted to Franks music in the BOF (Budapest Autumn Festival). I couldn't attend due to other commitments. And money. I would have loved to hear the rehearsals and concert.

The program was four pieces: Envelopes, Pedro's Dowry, Bogus Pomp and Strictly Genteel. These were the orchestra versions premiered at the 1984 Barbican concert in London with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kent Nagano. I copied music for all of them and I worked as orchestrator on the last two (the music of those two comes from 200 Motels.)

Weeks after the 100% Zappa concert, again thanks to Kill Ugly Radio and the Hungarian Zappa blog., I learned that I could hear the concert online in Real Audio via the Hungarian Radio's website. The Real Audio files are still available if you're interested. (They're posted in hour by hour format but the concert broadcast started at 19:35 so you'll need the files for 19 o'clock and 20 o'clock from this page. Good luck.)

I was really enthusiastic about these recordings. The orchestra played very well and it was obvious to me that the conductor was contributing positive interpretation. I was asked by Balint Marosi of the Hungarian Zappa website to write a little bit of commentary. Naturally I wrote a big lot instead of a little bit. The article is entitled In My Perfect World. You can read everything I wrote here.


Here's a quote from me:

"Pedro's Dowry is the most difficult of the four - both to play and to understand. I was very impressed with the way Adam Fischer brought out the connections between themes and enhanced the lyrical qualities. These things often get lost when the notes are so hard."

I conclude In My Perfect World with a flight of fancy about Bogus Pomp. It occurred to me that concert audiences, otherwise unfamiliar with Zappa's music, could be introduced to this piece as a symphony in one movement.

Bogus Pomp is very much like a symphony; it has pretty clear sections and lots of thematic references. I suggest four possible orchestra programs that I would enjoy hearing. Each program ends with Bogus Pomp. None of the additional music is too heavy and none of it is generally associated with Zappa - there's not a Varese piece anywhere.

I found two other comments about this Budapest concert. One Hungarian website has this review of 100% Zappa (it's in Hungarian). Here's a paragraph in translation:

"Adam Fischer conducted with his habitual energy and enthusiasm. The humor and playfulness of the four pieces gave Fischer an opportunity to sometimes almost become az instrumentalist member of the orchestra."

Tom Trapp, who arranged Frank's music for a different concert in Budapest (the one with my buddy Ed Mann and another Zappa alumnus who I wish was my buddy Mike Keneally), mentioned Adam Fischer in this interview:

"I had a little conversation with Adam Fischer in the dressing room, and he was pleased too, and he seemed to be very into the music, which - for me - is the most important thing when you're dealing with Zappa. You have to almost "live" for that music in that moment, and I think he did that."

So what's the common thread so far? It's that I think Zappa's orchestra music needs some strong musical leadership to bring it successfully into the concert hall.

These pieces simply do not play themselves.





3) SEEKING STEPHANIE ZIMMERMAN (or WHY ARE THERE NO PICTURES OF PUPPETS IN PERFORMANCE)

A man named Eric Peterson wrote to me. Eric is a digital artist, computer geek (that's a compliment, of course) and a fan of Frank Zappa. You can find his online stuff here and here and here.

Back in 1984 Eric attended a unique concert of Frank Zappa's orchestra music on the campus of U.C. Berkeley called A Zappa Affair.

The Berkeley Symphony, conducted by the young, unknown Kent Nagano, performed the really really hard Zappa orchestra pieces including Sinister Footwear.

While they played from the pit dancers manipulated life-size (and larger than life-size) puppets acting out the scenarios Frank had overlaid onto his music.


Here's a scan of the program insert. The concerts were broadcast live over KPFA - meaning that there are plenty of bootleg copies floating around. Here's a rave review by Larry Kelp from the Oakland Tribune which gives a good description of what happend. Kelp says:

Zappa's concept, the orchestra, dancers and a dazzling array of sets and props, all coalesced into a huge, two-hour production that was funny, entertaining, mixed the various art forms masterfully, and took a bold step into the future.

Besides Zappa and Nagano, the creative team behind A Zappa Affair included choreographers Tandy Beal and Joan Lazarus. But it was the puppet creations of the late John C. Gilkerson which really made magic happen.

One of the pieces on the program was Mo 'n Herb's Vacation and I was asked to perform the first clarinet part. That was the part Frank had written specifically for me at my request. There wasn't much else for me to do so I got to watch a lot of the goings on surrounding the whole "affair".

It's not hard to guess that during production Frank caused grief by the things he said and did as he guided the whole megillah over the top. Tensions racheted and tempers flared.

Here's a 1987 article by pianist Sarah Cahill reminiscing on the experience from the orchestra's vantage point.

She wrote:

People who went to the Zappa concerts remember them as one of the symphony's best productions ever. Unfortunately, people who worked on the concerts still think of them as a painful episode.

I personally remember how adamant Frank was that the performance not be videotaped. But on the night of the concert a professional video camera appeared in the concert hall. Frank was furious and demanded that the tape be destroyed. Long ago I mentioned this fact online here.

Apparently Eric Peterson saw my comment about the video and wrote to say that he had started a personal search for pictures from those performances. All he could find was publicity shots taken before hand. Eric could find no pictures at all of the puppets in performance - video or still. He asked if I could be of any help.

I dug through my vast mess of old flyers and programs and reviews. I found a copy of the program book from those concerts.

Looking through this material I was reminded of the name of the producer of A Zappa Affair - the person Frank angrily ordered to destroy the video tape. He did this at an after-concert dinner in a Chinese restaurant somewhere across the bay in San Francisco. Frank stormed off and the rest of us sat down to eat.

The producer of A Zappa Affair was Stephanie Zimmerman.

Stephanie, if you're out there, Eric Peterson would like to ask you whether some pictures of the performance exist. I hope there are some.

I've scanned the Zappa-relevant pages of the program book and created a pdf. You can download the file here. About 3 megs. It includes a number of publicity pictures, biographies of everyone involved, a slightly different program listing.

There is also an article by Stephanie Zimmerman entitled "How It All Happened". She tells many more interesting details about the creation of puppets and the production itself.

One thing the program book does NOT include anywhere is my name. But I was there. I did perform. Really. I can remember renting a tuxedo.

My own question for Stephanie is "Did you really destroy the tape?". I don't expect her to answer. I sure hope she didn't do it. Trust me, it'll be a great video. I want to see it. You'll want to see it too.


Unfortunately, if the tape does exist, it will be the subject of, um, legal wrangling. I doubt there was any formal agreement among the creators of A Zappa Affair over the rights to reproductions. Probably that's why Frank was so against making it.

The surviving creators and the heirs of the other creators will need to make some kind of agreement before releasing such a document. Believe me, that will not be easy. It will be hard. It will be next to impossible. If you don't already know why that is, you're better off.

But it could happen. I would like to get the process started as soon as possible because I only have a couple more decades to see the thing. Time's a wasting.


Here's a nice chronology of Frank Zappa's life.

I discuss the Wells Fargo Stage in this Mixed Meters post.

Another Mixed Meters post: Varese, Zappa and Slonimsky.

Click here for all Mixed Meters posts tagged "Zappa".

My very special thanks to Barry and all the fine folks at the fine blog Kill Ugly Radio and extra special thanks to Balint Marosi of the equally fine Hungarian Zappa blog. Read about how the heirs treat the fans here.

Also thanks to Eric Peterson (see above) who pointed out that he didn't actually attend A Zappa Affair as I said. But he did listen recently to a recording of the KPFK broadcast. Here's his reaction in his own words:

I found the broadcast I put it on my iPod one afternoon in Feb ‘06, I went for a walk and I was blown away AND very significantly, I was laughing! I was laughing with an audience listening to modern compositions played by an Orchestra. I was so anxious when I got home to find some images of the performance, I mean, how could they not exist? This was a major event. I heard that much that day.

Also thanks to David Windt (see comments below) - who took the picture of the puppet on-stage with dancer attached (the dancer, dressed totally in black, is barely visible). This happened not at A Zappa Affair but at a public discussion with Frank (Speaking of Music, May 20, 1984) moderated by Charles Amirkhanian. See David's description of what happened by clicking here.


Bogus Tags: Frank Zappa. . . orchestra music. . . Los Angeles Philharmonic. . . Hungarian Radio Orchestra. . . Berkeley Symphony. . . David Robertson. . . Adam Fischer. . . Kent Nagano. . . EricNP. . . Stephanie Zimmeramn