The 1,000 Greatest Films of All Time: No. 6

 

6. 8½

 

1963, Italy/France D: Federico Fellini

As the co-author of 1944’s Rome, Open City, the young Federico Fellini can easily be said to be one of the founding fathers of Italian neorealism. It’s all the more surprising, then, that as director, he gradually developed into one of the most fantastic, elaborate, and wildly visual directors the medium has ever seen. And with 8½, he made the most astonishing leap of his career, crafting a beautifully unprecedented, personal film, which jumped effortlessly from realism to dream sequences, childhood memories and wild fantasies with the graceful ease of a circus acrobat.

 

Released early in 1963 in Italy to near-universal acclaim, 8½ went on to dazzle the astonished film world at the Cannes Film Festival and then became a sensation in New York City in the summer. Fellini, already one of the most highly regarded directors in world cinema, was almost universally praised as "genius," and the film retains the status as his "masterpiece."

 

There is no other movie quite like this bizarre, quirky and incredibly indulgent essay on the artist, his world, and the creative process. Blatantly autobiographical, Fellini’s movie depicts an Italian director with writer’s block, struggling to come up with the idea for his newest film. The title comes from the fact that it is Fellini’s eighth movie (plus "a half" for co-directing another). Marcello Mastroianni, plays "Guido": approaching middle age, he is confused, conflicted, selfish, attracted to many women while still wanting to keep his wife, unrealistic, and constantly put-upon by producers, egotistical actors, fans, critics, and seemingly the entire world to create his newest work of cinematic art. Guido, meanwhile, is filled with self-doubt and cannot think of anything that he wants to say. Stalling for time, he casts the film with famous stars, orders large sets built (including a giant rocket), all the while hoping an idea will come to him.

 

8½ is the most visually dazzling film since Citizen Kane, and it probably even outdoes it, using all sorts of tricks taken from the cinematic avant-garde. However, what makes it such a rewarding and perennially great movie is its humor, its humility, its honesty, all combined with a a breathless enthusiasm that almost no other picture can match. To top it all off, Fellini’s long-time musical collaborator, the extraordinary Nino Rota, creates one of the most magnificently memorable scores ever constructed for a film, virtually almost turning this wild ride of a movie into a musical.

 

Alternately hilarious and heart-rending, 8½ is a whirlwind of images that constantly morph out of one another, sometimes amplifying, sometimes contradicting a mood, but always moving, skipping back and forth through time, jumping from dream to reality. Yet the film, for all its flash, is steeped in the harsh realities of human content. If 8½ really is the autobiography that Fellini wants us to believe it is, he is his own most relentless critic - and yet, despite all his faults, we care for Guido - we want him to make his movie, and more importantly, to pull his fractured life together.

 

By the film’s end, we come to realize that the movie he’s been struggling to make is precisely the one we’ve been watching all along. And we join with him and the entire cast in an extraordinary dance in celebration of the acceptance of life - with all of its insanity, contradictions, triumphs and tragedies. 8½ is perhaps the greatest hymn to movies ever made - but more importantly, it is ultimately a hymn to life itself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bird & Diz: Live 1945!

 

Town Hall, New York City, June 22, 1945

DIZZY GILLESPIE - CHARLIE PARKER (June 22, 1945)
Dizzy Gillespie (tp); Charlie Parker (as); Don Byas (ts, 1-2); Al Haig (p); Curly Russell (b); Max Roach (d, 1-5); Sid Catlett (d, 6-7)
1. Intro
2. Bebop
3. A Night in Tunisia
4. Groovin’ High
5. Salt Peanuts
6. Hot House
7. 52nd Street Theme

 

Following their second revolutionary recording session together on May 11, bebop prophets Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie stuck close throughout 1945. The duo backed up another session for Sarah Vaughan on May 25, producing three more titles for the singer. At nights, they played at clubs, mostly on 52nd Street, New York’s haven of jazz clubs, mostly under the name of the Dizzy Gillespie quintet. This "quintet" consisted of Diz and Bird (when he would deign to show up), plus whatever members of the May session they could get together. Parker was already becoming undependable due to his heroin addiction and his drinking, and Gillespie - a consummate showbiz professional - would not put up with it for very much longer. Dizzy took to making sure another sax player - usually tenorman Don Byas - would be there just in case Parker didn’t come strolling in before the gig was over.

In early June, the group took a short trip to Philadelphia, where they played along with vibraphonist Red Norvo, an older "swing" musician, and one of the few who "dug" the new music that Gillespie and Parker were playing. On June 6, they were back in New York, where the duo sat in a recording session with Norvo. (The results can be heard on the first eight tracks of a collection entitled The Modern Red Norvo - it’s available on Spotify and well worth listening to.)

On June 22, Dizzy and Bird's bands gave a very special show at a 1500-seat performance space known as "The Town Hall" (or just "The Hall), located in midtown Manhattan. The group was broadcast live over the radio by Symphony Sid, a jazz dee-jay who was into the new music scene. Not unusually, the show was taped - but very unusually, it disappeared for half a century. It was accidently discovered in 2005, and even more miraculously, it was a beautiful recording. It was immediately released on CD on a label named "Uptown," to great historical and critical acclaim.

While Bird and Diz played quite a lot together at clubs throughout the year, relatively few people got to hear them interact onstage, and tales of their performances together were legendary. During the 78-rpm era, recordings were limited to three minutes, so each musician would be limited to playing one solo (or less). In a club, these two twin wizards could simply open up and play!

This extraordinary album has now become an essential document of the first, fresh years of modern jazz, and it is all the more remarkable because of the extraordinary sparks that these two giants of music managed to generate between them. Head to head, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie were it. Nobody could touch these two titans, and the extraordinarily powerful performances on this disc give more than a hint of what the real excitement was like, down in the trenches, which were New York’s jazz clubs in the wild year of 1945. 
Making this live session even more extraordinary is one of the first recorded performances by legendary modern jazz drummer Max Roach. Max, along with Kenny Clarke and Art Blakey, had been playing the late-night jam sessions at Minton's and elsewhere, essentially re-inventing the drummer's role for the new music. Instead of just riding the beat, Roach would keep his hands and feet free to support and accentuate the soloists' playing, to maintain an active dialogue with him. Finally, we get to hear what a full bebop band actually sounds like!

"Bebop"

The first number is a typically fast contrafact with a traditional AABA structure. After the introductory theme, Byas play two full choruses, quite well. During Dizzy’s solo, shouts and applause can be heard, as Charlie Parker walks onstage - better late than never. What an entrance! Did he plan this? Probably not - it happened too many times. All we know is that Bird immediately proceeds to blow everybody’s heads off. He strolls onstage late and casually proceeds to deliver five straight choruses of the wildest, most complex and inventive jazz anyone listening will have ever heard in their lives - and at lightning-fast speed, no less. The man is absolutely dazzling. What a public debut! Fifty years later, the pure visceral shock that is felt is still perfectly tangible. It’s as if someone from Mars has just stepped off their space ship for a moment to show the "earthlings" how it’s supposed to be done.


 

 

 

"A Night in Tunisia"

As far as I can tell, Dizzy Gillespie’s most famous composition had yet to be recorded by anyone. He and Parker would lay it down at their next session, Parker’s first as a leader. Here, they unveil the masterpiece in all of its wild, heroic glory - including Parker’s unbelievably fast and complex (and at the time unanticipated) alto break right at the end of the statement of the exotic theme. Amazingly, he doesn’t let up - Bird plays two extraordinary choruses of notes no one has ever heard before. Al Haig enters for his two, and he wisely approaches with a relaxed style that nevertheless displays his enormous skills. And then there’s Diz . . . After a brief four-bar build-up, Gillespie launches into a high-octane opening that leads into his extraordinarily acrobatic solo. These were supermen, folks. (And listen to Max Roach dropping those bombs!) Dizzy’s quietly magnificent cadenza at the end. Talk about dazzling - what was the radio audience thinking at this point?



"Groovin High"

This fabulous Gillespie number which the pair recorded back in February was one of the few releases of the new music that had actually been released, and thus heard by more than just the habitués of the club scene. Symphony Sid even mentions that he plays it "so much" on his show during his introduction - though he might very well have been the only dee-jay in the city to be doing so.

As great as the record is, however, the tune gets much more life here, as the soloists are allowed to relax and stretch out with it, playing to their hearts' content. While the original recording was tightly packed with mini-solos and quickly arranged transition sections, the free and open format here encourages a less reckless, and purely joyful playing. Both Parker and Gillespie seem less concerned with showing off here, and just simply have a blast, floating effortlessly to the long, happy, relaxed strains of the tune. Plus, the great Oscar Pettiford is in on bass instead of the silly Slam Stewart, and Max Roach takes it to town. This is a real bobop band, folks - as real as it gets!

Haig also turns in a marvelous couple of choruses, and Dizzy ends the tune with the same triumphant cadenza that closes the record, ending beautifully on that impossible high, high note. This is indeed some special stuff we're getting to hear, so please feel free to take the opportunity to absorb and enjoy it to the max!

"Salt Peanuts"

Bird and Diz spring their newly recorded (May 11) composition on an unsuspecting public. Predictably, the audience cracks up at Gillespie's "lyrics," but the real insanity come with the solos. Both Parker and Gillespie take unusually long turns, both of them filling the room with fireworks at breakneck speed. This is an absolutely thrilling performance that demonstrates just how unpredictably wild and reckless the new music could be. Max Roach has a short solo toward the end that pumps up the excitement even more. By the time, the theme is reprised, and the tune comes to an abrupt end, you can hear the live crowd simply explode with astonished excitement. Man . . . to have been there!

"Hot House"

The group follows up with Tadd Dameron's composition that they also recorded at the last session. Sid Catlett, the drummer on the record, replaces Roach for this number, which he drives fast, hot and heavy. Bird only takes one chorus, but it's unbelievable. Dizzy follows with fireworks, then Haig. Catlett ends the piece with two full choruses of a drum solo. It's fun, the crowd loves it, but it's decidedly "swing." Catlett is fun, but I wish that Max had remained onstage to blow everyone away. Perhaps he was just a little too far ahead of his time at this point . . .

 

 

"52nd Street Theme"

The show closes with the traditional "52nd Street Theme" that so many New York jazz musicians would use to end their sets over the years to come. Both Bird and Diz manage to get one more miraculous line each, and that's all from Town Hall! Thank God somebody found this tape, and we can all listen to it and marvel at all these extraordinary moments we missed the first time around. Bird lives. And so does Diz.

 









 

 

 



 

 

 

 



The 1,000 Greatest Films of All Time: No. 5

5. The Rules of the Game

1939, France D: Jean Renoir

At first glance, it may appear strange that what looks to all purposes like a silly little French sex comedy could almost begin a riot. But that’s precisely what happened when Jean Renoir premiered his newest film in Paris, 1939. Not only did the audience boo the movie, but some people began to fight, and one patron actually attempted to set fire to the theater. Seems as though Renoir just may have struck a nerve . . .

I don’t know what the most extraordinary thing about this mind-bending masterpiece is. Is it its sheer audacious daring, its meticulously baroque plotting, its fast-pace humor, its insane cast of characters, its pure classical beauty, its impossibly byzantine camera movement, or its ultimate sense of the sad dignity and grace of humanity. I think, perhaps, its director’s greatest accomplishment is to keep all of these balls up in the air at the same time, while showing himself as a character in the center of it all, utterly helpless, yet trying to keep it all from flying apart!

The Rules of the Game is the ultimate ensemble cinematic triumph. It moves to its own internal rhythm like no other. There is no other movie that even comes close to sustaining its remarkably balanced, yet seemingly chaotic action so smoothly aligned to sheer perfection. It is one film that reveals more and more complexity and layers of irony with every successive viewing. In short, the more you watch it, the greater it becomes, the more it unfolds its riches. More remarkable still, it not only becomes more funny and more sad, but more shocking every time you see it.

And it was shock that accompanied its appearance right on the eve of the beginning of the Second World War. For without a single mention of the growing conflagration on the immediate horizon, Renoir unveiled so all the world could see, the frivolous, stupid, empty behavior of the idle and pretentious bourgeoisie of Europe who, by their very oblivion to the reality of their times, had let things come to such a horrific, unstoppable path. It is no wonder that Paris reacted with indignation and violence. Nobody wants to stare into a mirror that large and unflattering.

Actually all of the classes of French society take in on the chin in the film. The servants ape their masters in matters of sex, seduction and duplicity. But the greatest sin of all, in Renoir’s vision, is the one of sheer negligence - the act of looking the other way. When one must play one’s role, regardless of the implications or the outcome - even if the result is the tragic destruction of a human life - how can any one person be truly indicted? This was Renoir’s great transgression - he appeared with precisely the right message that absolutely nobody wanted to hear. We are the enemy.

At the very center of the two acts of criss-crossing lovers, deceits, cheats, lies, performances public and private, the film bursts wildly, appallingly and deafeningly to its horrific and devastating centerpiece. The hosts and their proper and distinguished guests all traipse casually out into the beautiful winter outdoors. Servants rush through the woods with sticks, frightening birds, rabbits and other wildlife ahead of them, until they emerge, unprotected, into an open area where the carefree, thoughtless humans mow them down in an epic, high-speed bloodbath of brutal carnage. I don’t care how you feel about hunting - after witnessing this vicious ritual enacted by such shallow, callous dilettantes, you may be tempted to start a riot yourself.

　

 

 

 

The Greatest 1,000 Albums of All Time: Update

Okay, so I was going to write about the 1,000 greatest albums of all time, based on a compilation site called BestEverMusic. But then I discovered another one that might be more authoritative (whatever that means in this context) called Acclaimed Music, which also ranks songs. While both sites are drawing from many of the same sources, and feature many of the same albums, they differ in their rankings quite considerably. What on earth should I do, I queried?

Finally, it hit me - like I was shot through the forehead with a diamond bullet - compile the compilers!

Yes, it’s such a simple solution. Just take the ranking from each site, divide by two and I’ll have the perfect ranking system. Here’s how they stack up (as of yesterday) in their assessment of the top ten albums of all time:


ACCLAIMED MUSIC
1. The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds
2. The Beatles: Revolver
3. Nirvana: Nevermind
4. The Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground & Nico
5. The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
6. The Clash: London Calling
7. Marvin Gaye: What’s Going On
8. The Rolling Stones: Exile on Main St.
9. Bob Dylan: Blonde on Blonde
10. Radiohead: OK Computer

BEST EVER ALBUMS
1. Radiohead: OK Computer
2. Pink Floyd: The Dark Side of the Moon
3. The Beatles: Revolver
4. The Beatles: Abbey Road
5. The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
6. Nirvana: Nevermind
7. Radiohead: Kid A
8. Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin IV
9. Arcade Fire: Funeral
10. The Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground & Nico

 Okay, so I combined the rankings of each, thinking it would yield me the perfect ranking. This is what I got:


COMPOSITE SCORE
2.5. The Beatles: Revolver
4.5. Nirvana: Nevermind
5. The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
5. Radiohead: OK Computer
7. The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds
7. The Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground & Nico
9. The Clash: London Calling
11.5 The Beatles: Abbey Road
11.5. Pink Floyd: The Dark Side of the Moon
17. The Rolling Stones: Exile on Main St.
18. Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin IV
19. Bob Dylan: Blonde on Blonde
20. Arcade Fire: Funeral
22. Radiohead: Kid A
Well, this is better - more balanced, don’t you think? Except Nevermind is still ranked above Sgt. Pepper’s. And that’s fucked up.

Oh, well, no compilation can be perfect. So I suppose I’ve got nothing left to do but report my findings and give my commentary. Once again, the most important thing is that these are all great albums, and that your lives are ABSOLUTELY EMPTY without them!

So I guess I’ll go ahead and start with Revolver. Even if it’s not the best album ever. (Even if it’s not the best BEATLES album ever - sigh.)

The main thing is that it will give people something very important to argue about. Coming to you soon! ("'Cause I'm the taxman/Yeah, I'm the taxman . . .")


　

The 1,000 Greatest Films of All Time: No. 4

4. Tokyo Story

 

1953, Japan D: Yasujiro Ozu

Many film-lovers in the West are not that well-acquainted with the works of Yasujiro Ozo, but in his native Japan, he is considered one of their greatest directors, on the same plane with his more-famous countryman, Akira Kurosawa. But the approaches of these two masters to the world of cinema could not be more different. Ozo might be seen as more quintessentially Japanese, in a formal sense. While Kurosawa’s camera broadly sweeps across both sets and landscapes with daring grace, Ozu carefully constructs his cinematic world with stationary formal shots, usually from a lower, floor-sitting level, and uses the natural interiors and exteriors to carefully frame his characters in a calm, orderly manner that almost seems meditational. While some Western viewers, more accustomed to Hollywood action, might feel that little happens in an Ozu film, the sheer, unflinching formalism of his brilliant craftsman’s style serves as a magnifying glass through which the patient, attentive viewer can see through to the very souls of the people on the screen. And more importantly, his camera is often a gateway or a mirror, directed back into the very depths of their own selves.

Tokyo Story is one this master’s greatest works, and one that through the decades, continues to grow both in the estimation of critics and in the hearts and minds of audiences, all the world over. This leisurely journey of an elderly small-town couple traveling to Tokyo to visit their grown children, this movie with such seemingly little significant dialogue, speaks volumes about the very nature of family, love, change, space and time. All told, it is one of the profoundest meditations every created for the screen about the very essence of life itself.

When Sukichi and Tomi Hirayama (Chishu Ryu, Chieko Higashiyama) arrive in Tokyo, they find that their son and daughter, both married, with their own jobs and children, have little time or inclination to visit with them or to show them around the big city. Although polite to the older folks, it soon becomes clear that their presence is actually more of a nuisance than a joyous reunion. This situation becomes highlighted as their daughter-in-law Noriko (played by the beautiful Japanese star Setsuko Hara), who was married to another son who was killed in the war, is genuinely delighted to see them and treats them with great affection.

Disappointed with their children, the old couple decide to return home early. However, Tomi gets ill on the train ride back, and dies soon after they return home. All the children must return to their home town for the funeral. Ozu and his actors keep everything perfectly balanced and low-keyed. Everyone behaves formally very well, though feelings of regret and bitterness subtly begin to surface.

During the film’s climactic scene, the couple’s youngest daughter, Kyoko (Kyoko Kagawa) releases her anger to Noriko at the behavior of her older siblings. Noriko breaks down in tears and tells her younger sister-in-law that even she (Noriko) is no better or worse herself, that she will probably remarry, move on and forget, as the essence of life is change and disappointment.

Tokyo Story is a film of sheer brilliance - everything rings true to life and nothing is overplayed. Yet the reality of the situation is so universal that it easily moves one to tears. As Roger Ebert said, it is one film that makes you want to be a better person.

 

 

 

 

 

Igor Stravinsky: The Firebird (ballet, 1910)

 

Stravinsky’s first big success was The Firebird, a ballet produced in Paris by the Russian company, the Ballet Ruses in 1910. Impresario Sergei Diaghilev had launched the project the year before with the purpose of introducing Russian works to French audiences, including pieces by Stranisky’s late teacher and mentor, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Diaghilev heard one of the 27-year-old Stravinsky’s early orchestral works performed in a concert in St. Petersburg, and was sufficiently impressed to approach the young composer about writing the score for an original ballet based upon a Russian poem and a folk-tale.

 

Diaghilev was highly ambitious to introduce new and modern 20th century works to the Parisian audience. His company was composed of some of Russia’s finest dancers, including Anna Pavlova, Vaslav Nijinsky, and many others. Artist and designer Alexandre Benois and choreographer Michel Fokine collaborated to create a story of a magical glowing bird, who is caught and released by a prince. After considering other young Russian composers, Diaghilev finally decided to offer the opportunity to Stravinsky.

 

The ballet premiered on June 25, 1910 and quickly became a sensation with the French public. The costumes, set designs and choreography were all highly stylized and innovative - it was a brilliant, unprecedented production. Nobody had ever seen anything quite like it. But holding it all together was the majestic, audacious music of this then-unknown Russian composer. This would quickly change Diaghilev brought Stravinsky back to write two sequels, each one more advanced and daring than the other. By the middle of the decade, Stravinsky was arguably the most famous and controversial composer in Europe.

 

The music for The Firebird was highly influenced by Rimsky-Korsakov, who had been one of the most forward-thinking late Romantic composers in Russia. But audiences were quick to notice a powerful individual voice emerging that would quickly blossom into the most radical new musical style since Wagner. Already in The Firebird, we find Stravinsky’s love for rhythm as a forceful and formidable element in music. We also hear for the first time his total mastery of tonal blending of instruments, particularly with various groupings of woodwinds and horns.

 

Stravinsky also had a flair for exotic melodies, which he put to full effect in the strange fairy-tale setting. There are long, eerie stretches of sound as themes slowly and ominously develop, followed by savage eruptions of loud and furious boldness marked by extreme chromaticism and the willingness to change meter to drive the action forward.

And finally, of course, we have the finale, one of the most beautiful and awe-inducing two-plus minutes of glorious music ever written. (For all of you old Yes fans, this is the startling, exciting fanfare that the group would play over the PA before each of their concerts before bursting onto stage.) Everyone who truly loves music needs to have a copy of Stravinsky's first masterpiece, or one of the suites that he later created for orchestral performance.

And for anyone who has never witnessed an actual ballet performance of The Firebird, I am including a particularly exotic, exciting video that is filmed in such a way that it might suggest some of the initial excitement and wonder that Stravinsky and Diaghelev created over a hundred years ago back in Paris - an event that would herald a brand new era in music.

Just as Pablo Picasso, among others, were radically reshaping the world of modern painting and sculpture, Stravinsky's bold ideas of rhythmic and harmonic abstraction would soon change the face of Western music. A bold new century had indeed begun, and the face of the new "modernism" would forever change the course of all the arts and all currents of thought. It's no wonder that Pablo liked to draw Igor's picture so often - though one was a Spaniard and the other a Russian, they truly were "birds of a feather."


 

Stravinsky by Picasso

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

The 1,000 Greatest Films of All Time: No. 3

3. 2001: A Space Odyssey

1968, UK/USA D: Stanley Kubrick

The first time I saw Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece was the ideal way to first encounter it: it was in a theater, I was 12 years old, and I had no idea what it was about. Of course, after I exited the theater, I still had no idea what it was about. But I knew that I had just experienced something that would forever change not only the way I viewed cinema, but the way I viewed reality. There’s a very short list of movies that can do that.

We have to remember that when 2001 was first released, we hadn’t even landed on the moon yet. There were no computer graphics to astound us. Kubrick’s vision of space in the near future was mind-bogglingly realistic and immediate. But it went further than that. God, did it go further than that!

First of all, the whole first section of the movie was about grunting ape-men. What was with that? And what was that huge object that suddenly appeared among them? Next thing you know, we’ve flashed to the future and they’ve discovered the same damn thing on the moon. What the . . .?

And the ending? What was happening here? Yes, it was mind-blowing and colorful. This was a trip I never even got on drugs. And he ends up in a room eating dinner?

Kubrick’s co-writer, Arthur C. Clarke wanted to clear up what Kubrick wanted to keep oblique, and when I read his novelization of the film, it answered a lot of questions I had, but it destroyed some of the mystery. I truly wish I had never read it and would have been forced to puzzle the whole thing out for myself - the movie had so much more power when I only had Kubrick’s images to chart my course.

But that doesn’t mean the film is no longer enigmatic! Kubrick’s silence of space is like the silence of God. At the end, when the earth is seen next to the giant embryo, and we hear Also Sprach Zarathustra one last time, is this a celebration of our infinite potential for evolution? Or is it a cynical portrait of determinism and cosmic meaninglessness? Believe me, I’ve read plenty of articles over the years arguing both ways. And there’s no way Kubrick was going to add a word of explanation.

I could go on forever about the devastating power of the imagery. That’s all obvious. Anyone who’s ever seen the film knows all about that. (And it all still holds up!) If that’s all the movie were, it would still be one of the greatest landmarks in cinematic history.

No, what truly gives the movie its endless power is its eerie emptiness, its matter-of-fact acceptance of the extraordinary. It’s so strange to watch the dull, banal humans utterly unaffected by this miraculous universe - and their own presence in it - while you sit there in shock and reverent awe.

It took me a long time to realize it, but the real center of the film is HAL. This computer, this marvel of artificial intelligence just may be superior to us, and therefore just may have the right to succeed us on our evolutionary path. That is the cold and scary truth.

2001: A Space Odyssey is the one movie you can put right up there next to the pyramids and the Sphinx as one of the great, mind-bending achievements of humankind. In short, it’s a monolith.

　
 

 

 

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The Greatest 1,000 Movies: No. 2

2. Vertigo

 

(USA 1958) D: Alfred Hitchcock

The real shame of Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece, Vertigo, is that it can only be seen for the first time once. Of course that’s true of all films, but I can think of no other movie that has the power of this one to hold a viewer in a true state of macabre wonder and obsession as this one does on first viewing. Hitchcock, is of course, the master manipulator of cinema, and this strange, disorienting story of a man (Jimmy Stewart) becoming obsessed with an unearthly beautiful woman (Kim Novak) who is seemingly coming under the possession of a dead woman is told with such a compelling and deft technique that the viewer is nearly driven as mad as the man who is desperately trying to solve her mystery.

 

Hitchcock here utilizes everything he has learned in a lifetime of a personalized vision of cinematic identification to pull the viewer, slowly, deeply and irrevocably into this impossible maelstrom of confusion and disorder. There is no character in movie history as completely controlled and haunted as Stewart’s "Scotty" Fergesun, a retired detective recruited by an old college friend to follow and spy on his beautiful wife, Madeline. No movie exercises more complete control over a viewer, as Hitchcock employs long sequences of Scotty following Madeline around San Francisco, which becomes a character in itself in the film, its winding streets mirroring the mounting confusion and chaos inside his mind, its stunning monuments standing out like visions in a haunted nightmare.

 

The richly saturated color of the film is probably the greatest use of Technicolor in history (especially in the restored edition), with its strategies of greens against browns and greys, as well as the powerful use of red at precise moments to heighten tension. This may be the most voluptuously beautiful movie ever filmed. Likewise the score, by the legendary Bernard Herrmann, is probably the most lavishly seductive sustained piece of music in any movie. (When the music ceases after Scotty’s breakdown and he wanders the streets alone, the film abandons him to a strange limbo state where you can "hear" his broken isolation.)

 

Some people will always criticize Hitchcock’s decision to give away the mystery at the point that he does, but it is the correct move all the way. Once the viewer is armed with the knowledge that Scotty does not possess, his every move becomes more and more transparent, and we squirm watching a man with which we have identified for so long descending further and further into obsessive madness, and we want to scream at the characters to make them stop what they’re doing.

 

But there is no point. These people are doomed. Hitchcock makes very, very clear the price one may have to pay for projecting an idealistic fantasy on a real flesh-and-blood human being, and he makes us suffer and pay for it, the way that his characters do. Like all great Hitchcock, this is a powerfully moral film, and while its cautionary message is sincere, the compulsive world that the director has so carefully devised leaves absolutely no room for escape. Scotty has to go up those stairs, and we are pushing him with every step. Once we do, we all get what we deserve.

 

Of course, the most amazing thing is that we continue to make the same mistakes every time we watch the film. Even after we know better. Now that’s cinematic mastery!

 

 

 

  

 

 

The Minoans: No Bull

Ancient Crete: A Reconstruction

Do you know was the first civilization to emerge historically in Europe? Interestingly, before 1900, no one did. In that year a very dedicated British explorer, historian and reporter-turned-archaeologist named Sir Arthur Evans began excavating on the large island of Crete in the southeast Mediterranean. What he uncovered there were the remains of a once-mighty maritime empire, which had flourished during the second millennium BCE. To his delight and amazement, Evans and his team uncovered an ancient "palace" composed of over 1000 rooms at the site of Knossos, located near the northern central coast. The rambling edifice put Evans in mind of the legendary Cretan "labyrinth" of Greek mythology, and inspired by the thrill and sense of wonder at his discovery, he dubbed this ancient civilization "Minoan," after the famous King Minos, the Homeric master of Crete and his island realm - the home of the mighty monster, the Minotaur.

King Minos

Sir Arthur Evans (1851-1941)

Palace at Knossos

It was one of those extraordinary discoveries where fact met fancy, and our entire picture of our own ancient history began to change. As Evans and his team worked on, it soon became obvious that this "Minoan" civilization was so old that it even pre-dated the recently discovered Bronze Age "Mycenaean" civilization that had been unearthed by Evans’ German forerunner and contemporary, Heinrich Schliemann just a few years earlier. A long-distant world that had been considered for centuries as the invention of later Greek minds was being summoned from the earth into actual factual existence!

But what was myth and what was reality? In ancient legends, Crete had a complex and important role in the development of the Greek world. There the mighty Minos, a son of Zeus by a mortal woman named Europa (who gave her name to the continent) ruthlessly ruled for generations. His wife, Pasiphae (the daughter of Helios, the sun god) had a thing for . . . well . . . a bull. To be fair, this was no ordinary bull. It was a beautiful white one that was a gift from Poseidon, god of the sea himself. Indeed, so much did she crave the "company" of this mighty beast that she instructed the master craftsman Daedalus to create for her a hollow cow in which she could she could hide, and through her positioning and its strategic design, she could safely mate with the object of her passion.

Unfortunately, after one such coupling (which one imagines must have been pretty intense), Pasiphae unfortunately conceived, and ultimately gave birth to the monstrous beast known as the Minotaur, who had the head of a bull and the body of a man.

Greek bust of the Minotaur

Naturally, King Minos was not terribly pleased when he heard the news, especially since this hybrid creature devoured men and women with an astonishing ferocity. Minos summoned Daedalus and demanded that he do something about it. Daedalus and his son, Icarus, immediately went to work and constructed a vast maze called the "labyrinth" to keep the creature contained.

 The Minotaur trapped in the labyrinth

Now, naturally Freud could have had a field day with all of this material, but as far as being any more that a product of the always-wild Greek imagination, no one had given much credence to the story. But as Evans and his crew continued their excavations into the Knossos palace, they were stunned to discover a wealth of bull’s horns placed as religious devotional objects. Even more shocking were statues and elaborately painted frescoes of people participating in what can only be called a ritual act of "bull-leaping!"


Bull-leaping fresco from Knossos

A "bull-leaping" figure

Just what the hell was going on here on this Greek island more that 1500 years ago, anyway? Had there really been a King Minos? Of course, nobody thought that there had been an actual Minotaur, but could the story be a very, very ancient piece of evidence of a bull-worshipping cult on Crete? Some intellectuals, such as the pioneering anthropologist and mythologist Sir James Frazer (1854-1941) speculated that the bull was an ancient sun symbol, and that the myth of Pasiphae’s dalliance with the beast was a remnant of an ages-old symbolic union between a queen and a fertility god. This was just speculation, of course. But just what exactly were the Minoans religious beliefs and practices?

Well, to tell the truth, no one exactly knows. You see, we can’t read their language. In the palace at Knossos there were discovered thousands of clay plates with a pre-alphabetic script written on them. There were two different kinds, from two different time periods. The first one, Evans called "Linear A," the second "Linear B." Eventually, "Linear B" was decoded to reveal that it was a very ancient form of Greek. To this day, nobody has yet deciphered the "Linear A" texts. But we know it’s not Greek. In fact, it’s nothing that resembles anything else that we’re familiar with.

Just who were the Minoans? Where did they come from, and just what were they doing there? Did they really jump over bulls?



STAY TUNED TO FIND OUT MORE!

petey
   

Bird and Diz 1945 - Part II

 

 

Dizzy Gillespie and His All Stars (May 11, 1945)

Dizzy Gillespie (tp, voc); Charlie Parker (as); Al Haig (p); Curly Russell; Sidney Catlett (d); Sarah Vaughan (voc -3)
 
1. Salt Peanuts

2. Shaw ‘Nuff

3. Lover Man

4. Hot House

Gillespie and Parker paired up again in the recording studio on May 11, 1945, producing four new recordings, including the standard "Lover Man", beautifully sung by the young Sarah Vaughan. As with the previous Gillespie/Parker session, all four of these tracks are available on The Complete Savoy and Dial Studio Recordings 1944-1948, but for some reason are missing on the three-disc Master Takes collection, a most egregious omission indeed! In even worse news, the Dizzy Gillespie collection Groovin’ High only has two of these recordings from these sessions. "Shaw ‘Nuff", along with "Salt Peanuts" and "Hot House" can be found on an excellent Gillespie 3-disc collection entitled Odyssey 1945-52. While I’d call this collection pretty essential, presenting pretty much all of Diz’s most important work from this period in one package, the tune can also be found on the single-disc collection, The Best of Odyssey: 1945-52. (Of course, if you’re just downloading these tunes, you can get them from any of these collections. Still, this should be easier!)

Notice, except for Bird and Diz, we have a completely different band here. Who are these guys? Well, first of all, there were more solidly bebop musicians here, such as Al Haig on piano, who was one of the earliest (and best) keyboard proponents of the new music. The guy is good - he has been described as "a forgotten giant." Plus, on bass, we have what is probably the definitive bebop bassist in Curly Russell. Sidney "Big Sid" Catlett was a bit older, and he was definitely a "swing" player on drums, though a damned good one, and he delivers a lot of momentum on these sides. Still, we haven’t yet seen a recording session that features exclusively "modernists" - and we won’t until Parker lays down his first session as a leader later in the year.

Still, this is a tremendous combo (just put together for the session, of course) and there are fireworks a-plenty from the two big guns, with superior backing support here.

 

"Salt Peanuts"

Gillespie was known as "Dizzy" for a reason, one of which is the near-slapstick humor he sometimes puts into his music. "Salt Peanuts" is a fast AABA structure with a quick repeating figure that jumps back and forth from octave to octave. The second time the theme is played through, Diz sings the lyrics rather than plays. The lyrics: "Salt peanuts, salt peanuts." That’s it. Four times. In the context of such brilliant mercurial playing as we have on this track, the silly vocals joyously enhance the thrill of musicians being able to to whip out such virtuosic brilliance and keep such a great sense of humor at the same time. The overall effect is a hilarious, braggadocio routine that still delivers the goods, producing great art.

The structure of the recording is this:

Intro: 16 bars (8 bars drums, 8 bars ensemble)

Theme (statement 1): 32 bars, ensemble (AABA)

Transition section: 8 bars, ensemble

Theme (statement 2): 32 bars, Parker, answered by Gillespie on vocals on the A sections, Parker on the Bridge (AABA)

Transition section 1: 8 bars, bass, with drums & piano

Transition section 2: 8 bars (6 bars ensemble, 2 Haig entrance to solo)

Haig solo: 1 chorus, 32 bars (AABA)

Parker solo: 1 chorus, 32 bars (AABA)

Transition section: 10 bars: (8 bars Parker & Gillespie trading 2’s, 4 bars Gillespie entrance to solo)

Gillespie solo: 1 chorus, 32 bars (AABA)

Catlett solo: 16 bars (AA)

Outro: 16 bars (8 bars drums, 8 bars ensemble and vocals)

 

 

Here we get another of Gillespie’s "wild" arrangements to match the audacity of the playing, but now he’s leaving plenty of room for the three main soloists to have a full chorus each.

We start out with a high-hat introduction that turns into a solid drum figure by Catlett. Then come the horns, playing a little stop-and-start figure, jumping back and forth on a tritone, before tumbling chromatically down at the end. The effect is something akin to two clowns falling down a set of stairs.

It’s an appropriate entrance, as the main theme itself is ridiculously silly: a twisting little 2-bar riff, followed by a pause and a couple of octave-leap hops, each repeated twice on every A section. Two downward bridge passages come fast and straight, giving the piece a little more structure (and sanity). Suddenly, after the entire 32-bar theme has been stated, the horns launch into a little 8-bar transitions section that features simultaneous hard bebop playing. This is a compositional strategy by Gillespie that is quite cagey, actually, as it opens the piece up and forces the listener to take the whole confection more seriously as music than they might otherwise do, given all the wackiness.

Still, it just gets wackier. We return to the theme, only this time, the first section is played by Parker only, then everyone slams quiet as Gillespie "sings" the double-octave jump up to falsetto: "Salt peanuts, salt peanuts." These are the only words to the song, but Gillespie dutifully repeats them over and over throughout the entire 32 bars, as serious as anything. No wonder they called him "Dizzy"! This is one of the silliest things you’ll ever hear, but it’s tremendously fun, and it serves as a tremendous launching pad into some of the greatest jazz soloing ever recorded.

We get a little preview as Charles Parker stretches out and plays fire over the bridge before returning to Dizzy’s last "statement". Two more 8-bar transition sections follow, the first being a "mini-bass-solo" by Curly Russell, along with the rest of the rhythm section. They second is another arranged horn part that acts like an on-ramp to take you to the solos proper.

The first one is taken by Al Haig on piano, and it is an impressive display of high-speed runs that shows off the virtuostic dexterity of this new breed of musicians. Charlie Parker plays next, though and that’s what we’re here for.

What can I say? Everything Bird plays during these 32 bars is extraordinary, beautiful and unexpected - yet it all fits together. Charlie Parker is an acrobat, seemingly turning the tune upside down and inside out, while somehow keeping it all melodically engaging and sweet. Bird’s sense of rhythm is as impeccable as his mind-boggling choice of notes. Sometimes he’ll play even phrases, then he’ll do summersaults over multiple bars that leave you breathless. No wonder he caused a sensation. There is simply no explanation for this rapid-fire level of unprecedented creative ideas. This is simply genius. And once again - as he almost always will - Parker performs these impossible feats with such a lovely restrained tone, a relaxed cockiness and a knowing wink that to call him a show-off is simply foolish. The man is just that good.

At the end of his solo, seemingly a part of it, Parker plays a little 2-bar phrase that is immediately picked up and imitated by Gillespie on his trumpet. Parker plays it one more time, the band stops, and Dizzy launches into a 4-bar intro that will take him soaring right into his own chorus. Talk about showmanship!

Dizzy Gillespie may not have been the authentic genius that Parker was, but he’s one of the greatest trumpet players of all time. The fact that he can keep up the standards that Bird has set in his playing is simply amazing - his ability to increase the dramatic momentum is simply unbelievable. Diz plays so high and so fast, and God, does he know how to turn a phrase! There is no wonder that these recordings set off a revolution!

After his chorus, Catlett begins an excited drum solo, but after four bars, he switches back to the opening rhythm, and we have a repeat of the same wacky intro. Only this time, right before the end, everyone stops playing and chants, "Salt peanuts, salt peanuts!" as if it’s some kind of manifesto, and the final chord drops down. All great art should be so ridiculously fun - 70 years later, and it’s still a mind-blower!

"Shaw ‘Nuff"

Go ahead and find this one as I described above. I will take another little moment to complain about the fact that these extraordinary, seminal tracks aren’t all easily collectable and ubiquitous, as they damned well deserve to be. Now, on to the tune!

"Shaw ‘Nuff" is co-credited to both Gillespie and Parker, and it is sounds like a straight bebop contrafact: that is, the use of a new melody over an already established harmonic structure, usually of a popular tune. One of the most widely used songs used for bebop contrafacts was George Gershwin’s famous tune, "I Got Rhythm" (1930). The chords from this song were used so often, in fact, that they are simply referred to in jazz circles as "Rhythm Changes." I’m not certain, but that’s what "Shaw ‘Nuff" sounds like to me - at least it’s not very far off from that.

The structure of the piece is so simple that it has become practically the backbone of modern jazz structure. "I Got Rhythm" is itself composed in what is called the 32-Bar AABA American song structure." So much modern jazz - especially as established by Parker, Gillespie and others - is built upon this format (along with the traditional 12-bar blues ABA structure), that virtually anything that deviates from it is considered "experimental" to some degree.

I’ve been mentioning the AABA structure, but I haven’t really explained it yet, so I really should. Knowing this structure (and its variations) makes it much easier to listen to jazz and tell precisely what is going on. The structure is actually very simple.

First, there is an "A" section of melody that is played in eight bars of four. This A section can generally be thought of a being divisible by two, so that you tend to get a two-bar "statement" followed by a two-bar "answer."

The first A section is then immediately repeated, usually verbatim, although occasionally there will be some variations: in that case, we will usually use the designations A1 and A2. ("Shaw ‘Nuff" repeats the A section without variation at all.)

After playing the first two A sections, we have traversed 16 bars, and we are halfway through the "composition", properly speaking. We now have another 8-bar section, and it is labelled "B". Why? Because it’s completely different - different melody, different chords. In a song format (which this is), this section is known as the "bridge", and its purpose is to throw in some harmonic variety, to deviate from the established melody before "coming home" or returning to play the final 8-bar A section one last time.

The "bridge" is always the most notable section of the piece, since it is the only part of the structure that significantly deviates from the rest of the structure. A lot of these B sections can get quite complicated, and it’s always interesting to hear what musicians come up for these "tricky" little 8 bars.

So, once the entire thing has been played: AABA - you’ve got the whole song structure (basically the entire composition) stated. So what happens next?

Well, basically, the group plays the harmonic structure of the entire 32-bar AABA pattern over and over again. That is, it plays the same chords each time. Jazz usually doesn’t develop its compositional shape the way classical music does. Its interest, rather, comes from the improvisations of the soloists. The musicians take turn playing over the same chord changes, but inventing their own (usually highly complex) melodies right there on the spot. This improvisation, is, of course, the very essence of what jazz is all about. And Charlie Parker was simply one of the greatest and most inventive improvisers in the history of the music. Not only was he incredibly creative with his improvised melodies (which he could spin out endlessly at an extraordinarily high speed), but he devised a way to mathematically extend the number of notes that could be played over any given chord. The fact that he could take all of these exponential choices and endlessly recombine them in real time to create fascinating, dazzling melodic statements was seriously something that no one had come close to doing before.

In creating his style of playing, Charlie Parker essentially invented a new language for jazz music. And since all of the musicians of the time - and most of them since him - have been imitating what he created, it’s pretty much safe to say that the language of modern jazz in general is the language of Charlie Parker. Great musicians like Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, etc. would all develop their own styles - but like all "modern" jazz musicians, they were building on what Charlie Parker first created.

It is this, fundamentally, that makes Charlie Parker one of the greatest and most important musicians of all time, and makes many music historians place him in the same class as say, Beethoven, who radically opened up new musical forms that other composers then followed. Charlie Parker was a truly radical, original musical artist - someone who completely changed the was music was thought about and played.

But Parker wasn’t just a revolutionary - he was a genius, and very, very great musician. The idea that he could conceive so much beautiful and complex relationships is extraordinary. But the fact that he could play it on his horn - at that speed - and make sound that good is simply mind-blowing.

When I listen to a Charlie Parker recording, I like to play it all the way through, then play it back again several more times, one after the other. Parker was recording in the 78 rpm shellac era, and those old records would only hold 3 minutes a side, so everybody has to get out what they’re going to say really quickly. Charlie Parker puts so much into one of his solos that it’s really difficult to grasp what he’s saying the first time through. That’s why it’s so wonderful with a CD or a computer recording, where you can sit and just listen to his solos over and over until they finally start to sink in. I can’t recommend this method enough. Short of learning music theory and copying down his notes, there’s no better way to appreciate and enjoy what he’s doing.

Well, back to "Shaw ‘Nuff". Like I said, it is a 32-bar AABA structure, but someone - probably Dizzy - has added a little introductory and ending material that wraps around it like an extra outer layer on a cake.

Anyway, the structure of the piece, as recorded, is this:

Drum & piano intro: 8 bars

Introductory theme: 16 bars, ensemble (AB)

Main theme: 32 bars, ensemble (AABA)

Parker solo: 1 chorus, 32 bars (AABA)

Gillespie solo: 1 chorus, 32 bars (AABA)

Haig solo: 1 chorus, 32 bars (AABA)

Main theme repeat: 32 bars, ensemble (AABA)

Drum & piano intro: 8 bars

Introductory theme repeat: 16 bars, ensemble (AB)

 

"Shaw ‘Nuff" starts out with Sid Catlett playing an asymmetrical little pattern on his drums for 8 bars of four, with Al Haig quietly doubling the rhythm on the lower keys of his piano. It’s a kind of start-and-stop thing that’s designed to throw you off guard a bit in a typically bebop way.

Immediately following this "intro" the horns come in and play what we will at first believe to be the main theme of the piece. (I have to believe that this part of the piece was Gillespie’s contribution.) Gillespie and Parker pop off a quick 8-note series in minor-key harmony, then play a figure that tails up and stops. They repeat the 8 notes, then tail back down. Suddenly, everybody stops (with the exception of Catlett, who keeps lightly drumming). The horn re-enter, in unison now, and play a confused little figure, then stop in mid air. (This is Diz fooling with us again.)

A quick piano run takes us directly to the beginning of the real theme, which is wild and crazy enough. The theme is probably from Parker, who will be using these sorts of twisted contrafact that’s usually based on one of his own solo lines layered over a simple and familiar chord pattern. The theme is incredibly fast, and Bird and Diz play it together in unison at breakneck speed, never breaking a sweat, though. In 1945, this "tune" would have been enough to knock most listeners (and especially musicians) out of their chairs, but it’s the solos that we’re hear for, and we get three great ones.

Parker and Gillespie are the stars of this show, though - and they don’t disappoint. Parker takes the first solo - a full 32-bar chorus that defies gravity and description. He jump-starts himself with a quick little 6-note phrase that he uses as a launching pad to take him across the rest of the first eight bars. After a pause, he lights into another phrase that will cover the entire second bar without any set-up. On the bridge, he goes into this ridiculously complex little rhythmic motif and rides it down the scale, expanding and contracting it until it straightens out and plays all the way halfway through the eight bars of the final A section. One more phrase rounds everything off.

Where Parker is cool, Gillespie is hot, and he announces his presence with a typical upward scream on his trumpet. He pauses until four full bars have passed - Diz always has a great sense for the dramatic - and then jumps in, matching Parker note for note. At the beginning of the bridge, Gillespie announces an enormously powerful phrase that hangs in the air. Then he jumps back on and rides the full 12 remaining bars out to the end of his solo.

Why didn’t Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie play together more? I really don’t know the answer to that question, but it seems strange that they didn’t. When you picture them from this time, you invariably picture them together, and lord knows they are the only two of the "modernists" who could really stand toe-to-toe together. While it seems obvious to us today that they should have formed a working band together, they did not, and each man went his own separate way (though they would continue coming back together occasionally over the years). Perhaps Parker and his erratic life habits were simply too much for Gillespie to deal with. Maybe there were ego clashes. Who knows? But history happened as it did, and at least we have these priceless recordings to display all the mind-boggling sparks that each one set off in the playing of the other.

Al Haig follows Dizzy with a thoroughly modern solo of lightning-fast runs on the high keys of the piano. He’s excellent, but he can’t help but be something of a let-down after Parker and Gillespie (who woldn’t be besides Bud Powell or Thelonious Monk?).

It doesn’t matter as the crazy-fast reckless theme returns and is fully restated, followed by the complete minor-key intro. The group leaves the last chord an unanswered question, hanging in space. Once again, these two visitors from mars have landed, bedazzled, and taken off again.

 

"Lover Man" 

  

Sarah Vaughan was born in 1924, and grew up in Newark, New Jersey. In 1942, at the age of 18, Vaughan (whose nickname was "Sassy") began regularly crossing the river to listen to the big bands and participating in amateur nights at Harlem theaters. A victory for singing "Body and Soul" at the famous Apollo got her $10 and the chance as an opening act for Ella Fitzgerald. By 1943 to 1944, Vaughan was singing regularly with Billy Eckstine’s band - which also featured Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker.

Just exactly how and why she wound up at this Gillespie recording session is unknown, but probably Dizzy suggested it himself. At any rate, her classic performance of "Lover Man" was released as the A-side of the 78 record that featured "Shaw ‘Nuff" on the other, thus launching her long solo career.

Once again, "Lover Man" appears on Parker’s Complete Savoy and Dial Studio Recordings 1944-1948 and Gillespie’s Odyssey 1945-52, but not on Groovin’ High or any of the shorter compilations. Nor can it easily be found on any of Vaughan’s collections, though later versions are ubiquitous. Plus, the divine Billie Holiday would have a hit with this classic song later the same year.

You can decide for yourself, but I think the young, but seasoned 21-year-old’s performance her is definitive. Her silky voice and sensuous intonation is absolutely intoxicating, and her (very) unobtrusive musical support is top-notch. Personally, I rank this recording as one of the greatest vocal records I’ve ever heard. So listen to it, already.

There’s not much in the arrangement, but the structure is this:

Intro - 5 bars, ensemble
Main theme (sung): 32 bars, Vaughan (AABA)

Gillespie solo (muted): 8 bars (B)

Main theme (sung): 8 bars (final A)

Coda: (sung): 4 bars, Vaughan



 

 

 

God, that’s seductive! Vaughan has found the perfect vehicle here for her silky-smooth voice at an age that combines youthful beauty with a budding sensuality. Dizzy’s short solo is respectfully sedate. And when you’ve got Charlie Parker quietly playing little glissandos next to you, how can you go wrong? A classic!

 

"Hot House"

The last number to be recorded that day was written by a young man named Tadd Dameron (1917-1965):
 

 

 

Dameron was a fine pianist, but he is best known as a composer and an arranger of extraordinary delicacy and taste. He was (and still is) considered the foremost arranger of the bebop period, who later wrote the scores for Gillespie’s big band, and is the composer of dozens of modern jazz standards. "Hot House" was one of his first to be recorded, and it has an interesting structure and feel.

 

The chords are based on a Cole Porter song called "What Is This Thing Called Love?", but Dameron changes the melody around to give it a spooky, "mysterious" feel. The structure is a little different as well. Although the tune has the usual 32-bar structure, the sections vary from the norm, coming up with a pattern that I would designate as:

 

AB1B2A

 

The first and last eight bars are identical, but the middle sixteen are different, though they are designed to mirror each other to a large degree. While melodically similar, the harmony is different (and the melody more ornate) in the second 8-bar B section, resolving what was stated in the first. The resultant effect is that we get the feel of a long 16-bar bridge separating two bookended statements that stand apart like towers on either side of a river.

 

The rhythm, as Dameron conceives it is a snakey, little piece of what might even be called "funk", even at so early a date. All in all, it’s a compelling vehicle that invites Parker and Gillespie to explore with interesting harmonic excursions without breaking into wild antics. In short, "Hot House," despite its title, demonstrated that bebop could be "cool."

 

I see the structure as this:

 

Intro - 4 bars, drums

Main theme: 32 bars, ensemble (AB1B2A)

Parker solo: 1 chorus, 32 bars (AB1B2A)

Gillespie solo: 1 chorus, 32 bars (AB1B2A)

Main theme: 16 bars, ensembe (AB1)

Haig solo: 8 bars (B2)

Main theme conclusion: 8 bars, ensemble (A)

 

 

Listen to the statement of the theme closely and you can hear how Dameron carefully uses the bebop flourishes as carefully delineated elements in the harmonic construction, keeping them clean and separate and balancing them off each other. It’s truly a skillful, tasteful feat. Notice also in the second B section how Bird’s and Diz’s horns separate just at the right place for a harmony to hit a maximum effect before blending back together just before returning to the final A section.

 

Parker takes a very clever strategy on this (relatively) unusual structure. He plays straight, pure bebop on the opening A section, in two phrases: a short one, which he immediately answers by a longer one. During the first four bars of the first B section, however, he plays the beginning of a completely different and straight, slower melody. He does nor immediately complete this phrase, however, but instead answers himself with a four-bar flurry of lightning-fast notes that seem to fly in every direction simultaneously. At the beginning of the second B, he returns to his little theme and repeats it at a different pitch, as it now falls naturally on a different chord structure. The effect is perfect - and knowing Bird, he no doubt conceived the entire structure just before he played it. He finishes the second half of the section with more fast notes, but a tad more restrained. For the final A section, he returns to the bebop mode he began with, playing two even phrases of four bars each - the last one being a winking little structure that rounds everything out, as if to say (laughingly) to his listeners, "Yeah, I’m bad!"

 

Most mortals would be daunted at following this little performance, but Gillespie is fearless. He begins with his own jaunty melodic line over the first four bars, pauses then explodes with a rapid-fire series of notes in answer. Then he shows off those incredible chops, jumping way up in the high register where he can just soar, which he does - on one descending passage that goes a full four bars. He then outdoes himself, playing the entire eight bars of the second B section in one phrase composed of quick and complex rhythms. He stretches out for the final A and takes that all in one gulp as well, but almost with a shrug.

 

These guys! I mean, there are few greater musicians in history, I know. But the way they push each other to new heights is just astounding.

 

The horns return to play the main theme again, but they drop out after the firs B section to give Al Haig eight bars to solo. This is a better construction, given the fact that there’s no way Haig can compete on this level, and he wisely chooses to play lightly and elegantly, adding a touch of class rather than attempt any acrobatics. The horns join back in for the final A, and bam! - "Hot House" is history. It’s slapped on the B-side of "Salt Peanuts," and I do believe the record turned some more heads.

 

All in all, I have to say that this session is superior to the first one that Gillespie and Parker put down back in February. For whatever reason, these two giants would not record as a duet in a studio together again for five more years - each musician would follow his own distinct path. But luckily for us, they got back to play together live in June of this same year (1945), and somebody was smart enough to have a tape recorder going. That tape went undiscovered for some sixty years, but somebody finally found it, cleaned in up and released in on CD in 2005. Oh, yeah, we’re gonna listen to it!