Word: rhythms
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...eases his thick frame down before a harpsichord in the parlor. Crowding about the creche and the candlelit tree, the party joins in singing a carol or one of Luther's mighty hymns. Then Papa-head thrown back, fingers marching over the keys in a steady, stately rhythm-begins to improvise, outlining a succession of daring harmonies, guiding the simple theme through a contrapuntal labyrinth of variations. The melody emerges transformed: elaborate, yet plain; passionate, yet rigorously logical. It is a prayer to God in sound...
...Bach is what attracts them to almost any other music: the beat. Artists of the past sometimes judged Bach to be nothing more than jigging monotony-"a sublime sewing machine," Colette called him-but the young know better. "There is a bridge between Bach's ideas of rhythm and those of the mid-20th century," says Pianist Glenn Gould, "and it has been created by popular music and jazz." The Swingle Singers, an eight-member Paris-based group led by American Ward Swingle, popularized Bach scores by performing them to the accompaniment of a jazz rhythm section, singing...
...group was best on "Tobacco Leaves," a song that Miss Bavan did well. Perfectly-paced musically by Ivers, the song had a near blues-tempo, created by a softly rushing rhythm section and featuring some quivering solos on harp and sax. On "Gentle Jesus," another complex piece that switches from abstract dissonances to a version of swing, Ivers achieved a synthesis of blues and jazz on Paul Butterfield's In My Own Dream model...
...Pepper should be a shackling precedent for whatever follows. But when the foursome meander from style to style without any apparent guiding objective or sense of urgency, they seem to be substituting synthetics for synthesis. Even their renewed interest in the song styles of the English music hall and rhythm and blues-one of the album's most attractive features-is slightly tainted. In the hollow Yer Blues or the sentimental While My Guitar Gently Weeps, the longing for roots is too calculated, like the urban sophisticate's nostalgia for the primitive...
...piece for today is Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole. Galamian nods and sings along, sometimes snapping his fingers to indicate rhythm. His few comments are deceptively simple. "Intonation," he murmurs, or, "That's it, that's it." When something goes wrong, he raises an eyebrow; the music stops cold. Then he picks up his 1680 Nicola Amati violin and, filling the room with a full, rich tone, shows how the passage should sound. "Mark that," he says...