Word: basses
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Boom! A cannon shot from the Society Jazz Band bass drum jolts the chattering crowd outside the Gertrude Geddes Willis Funeral Home into a brief silence. The casket is coming out. Boom! A second shot signals the stricken cadence of a dirge. The white gloves of the pallbearers flash in the morning sun as they float their burden to the silver-gray Cadillac hearse. The main party of mourners, a score or so, fit themselves into several cars waiting in line...
Boom! As soon as the casket emerges, a bass drum shot shatters the air. The dirge-playing band leads the way up the road toward the cemetery, then separates from the casket. At first it retraces its route by drumbeat alone. Then the trumpet screams forth, the drummers swing out, belted choruses of The Second Line assail the sky. The crowd, most of it, becomes a blur of fidgeting feet, twisting torsos, bobbing heads. A corpulent man in an orange shirt spins and dips. An elderly woman executes a scampering step with the help of her cane. An open-shirted...
...from their earlier rock and roll-rhythm and blues show to include salsa, mock country, and border-line disco. Their guitar sound has suffered a bit under the increasingly lackadaisical supervision of Keith Richards and Ron Wood, and the aged Bill Wyrhan has done little to improve his methodical bass playing. But Watts, now limiting himself to a snare, high-hat, and garbage can top, remains raw and on-the-mark. Jagger's singing has actually improved as he has tried new styles. Slowed down by countless women and residual effects of nearly two decades of group cynicism, the Stones...
...Whip Comes Down," open the second side. On the former, Jagger tries for a vague Muddy Waters imitation and comes up a bit short, but he receives enthusiastic vocal backing from occasional Stones keyboardist Billy Preston. "When the Whip Comes Down" benefits from a propulsive rhythm guitar and bass line, but whoever played the lead barely distinguishes himself from the tenative style of a high school amateur. Other cuts include "Crazy Mama," a gritty "I-want-to-sleep-with-you-anyway" number and the overplayed "Beast of Burden...
...score has two powerful moments that foreshadow the composer's mature style. The first comes in the opening, when the heroine Odabella (Soprano Marilyn Zschau) confronts Attila (Bass Samuel Ramey), who has just killed her father and razed her city, Aquileia. In a fiery aria laced with coloratura, she swears vengeance. Around her a chorus of barbarians praises Attila's conquests. The scene is an early example of the art of dramatic juxtaposition perfected at the end of the third act of Otello, with lago gloating over his fallen master as the Venetians outside sing the Moor...