Word: chords
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...cool, just as they aren't so sure it's cool when they come across the more stomach-turning specimens of pop music in their kids' CD collections. That's why, when Bob Dole went to Los Angeles last week to blast the entertainment industry, he touched a chord that transcended the party politics his remarks were shrewdly crafted to serve. Though popular culture has a long and proud history of offending the squares, during the current decade it has particularly kept its sharpest edges to the front. Whatever is scabrous and saw-toothed and in-your-face is probably...
...excellent choice. As we jaded Americans settled back into our seats to sleep or watch the film, the Elvises gathered eagerly before the screen. Although few American viewers paid attention to the cultural-historical "plot" of this year's feel-good favorite, the film touched an inner chord with the flying Elvises...
Most of the renditions have an engagingly primitive sound; it's as if the boys told themselves, "Let's get on the radio, pretend it's John's basement and have some fun." Sometimes they fiddle with (or bollix up) the chord structure of the original tune. On a few songs they finesse the lyrics (George's vocal on Roll Over Beethoven alters "Dig these rhythm and blues" to "Dig these heathen blues") or finically polish the grammar (John's "You've really got a hold on me"). Some of their covers (Young Blood, Johnny B. Goode) sound sluggish, anemic...
Thus, Shostakovich's "Jazz Suites" are quite unlike any jazz that we know today. They don't even correspond to the jazz compositions attempted by Igor Stravinsky at the same time--his were far more exploratory in chord structure and overall form. Shostakovich's jazz embodies a kind of ethereal chintz that might call to mind, on first listening, the London compact disc, Riccardo Chailly and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam attempt to bring forth that light naivete in all of its utter inocuousness...
...with Ronald Brautigam at the piano and Peter Masseurs supplying the trumpet solo work. The piece resembles Shostakovich's other concertos for violin and cello in that conventional devices of the Germanic school are used for delirious swells and placid falls, with the addition of unexpected minor chord modulations that open up new possibilities for the instrument. Those who see Shostakovich as a throwback to the Romantics should not underestimate the importance of his original variations on timetested themes...