Absolute Beginners

As my older kid’s Bowie obsession continues, he is digging deeper into the corners of the catalog and finding songs that I hadn’t even heard of. This week we’re learning “Absolute Beginners”, which Bowie wrote for the movie of the same name.

The song is as richly weird as all Bowie songs are. The instrumentation is mostly standard eighties rock, except for the horn section, which is one trumpeter and six (!) saxophonists. I learned from the Bowie Bible that Bowie wanted a backing vocalist who sounded “like a shopgirl”. Session guitarist Kevin Armstrong recommended his younger sister Janet, who had never sung professionally in a studio before. Knowing that makes me feel a little warmer toward her fairly awkward performance.

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Ashes to Ashes

My older kid continues to be deep into Bowie, and has been learning “Ashes to Ashes” on piano. This tune has not been a favorite of mine historically; as a young person, I found it hard to connect to its carsick decadence. However, the kid adores it, so I’m giving it more of a chance. It’s certainly easier to relate to as a middle-aged guy with a lot of regrets. The song is surprisingly complicated and weird for a number one UK hit! Also, the music video was the most expensive ever made to that point:

The most distinctive aspect of “Ashes to Ashes” is right in its first second, that freaky piano sound. Producer Tony Visconti wanted a Wurlitzer, but there wasn’t one in the building, so as a substitute, he ran an acoustic piano through an Eventide Instant Flanger. The part is played by Roy Bittan from the E Street Band, who was recording The River with Bruce Springsteen in the studio next door at the Power Station. The fake strings are played by Chuck Hammer on a Roland GR-500 guitar synth. Carlos Alomar plays regular guitar, George Murray plays the funky slap bass, Dennis Davis plays the herky-jerky drum part, and Tony Visconti plays assorted hand percussion. Andy Clark added synth textures on a Minimoog and a Yamaha CS-80 later in the recording process.

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Moonage Daydream

Over the weekend I went with the family to see the newly remastered 1973 David Bowie concert film, Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. I can’t recommend it highly enough. The picture and sound quality are uneven at best, but Bowie is such a spellbinding performer that it doesn’t matter. One of the high points is his performance of this banger.

Like all the great Bowie songs of the era, this superficially sounds like a regular rock song, but it has a lot of peculiar songwriting and arrangement touches. Bowie plays acoustic guitar, but also saxophone and pennywhistle. Mick Ronson plays electric guitar and piano, and also wrote the string arrangement. Trevor Bolder plays bass and Woody Woodmansey plays drums.

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Little Simz and Ramsey Lewis

In 1973, the Ramsey Lewis Trio performed their arrangement of “Summer Breeze” by Seals and Crofts on German television. This performance has been viewed an astonishing 1.6 million times on YouTube.

I learned that fact from Paul Thompson‘s analysis of the performance, which includes transcriptions of several of Cleveland Eaton’s basslines. Paul’s YouTube channel is one of the most valuable music education resources on the internet.

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Melanie’s chords are usually sad

The Black Mirror episode “Loch Henry” features a song by Melanie called “People in the Front Row.”

In the last verse, she sings:

These chords that I’m using are usually sad
I had to use them, they’re the best chords that I have
Oh yeah, this progression is usually sad
But it felt my sorrow and I wanted it to feel me glad

This grabbed my ear immediately. I’m always interested in a song that describes its own musical content. But are these chords usually sad? In the context of the Black Mirror episode (it’s about the making of a true crime documentary), the song is incongruously cheerful. But let’s take Melanie at her word. What’s going on here?

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Baby, I Love You

I continue to be severely stressed out about the state of America and the world, and I continue to reach to Aretha Franklin for emotional support. This week I soothed myself by studying “Baby, I Love You” from her 1967 album Aretha Arrives.

The song is by Ronnie Shannon, who also wrote “I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You”. The guitar is by Jimmy Johnson or Joe South, or possibly both of them. Tommy Cogbill plays bass, Roger Hawkins plays drums, and Spooner Oldham plays electric piano. The horn section includes Charles Chalmers and King Curtis on tenor saxophone, Tony Studd on bass trombone, and Melvin Lastie on trumpet. The backing vocals are by Aretha’s sisters Carolyn and Erma Franklin, along with Aretha herself overdubbed on the chorus.

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The saddest chord progression ever (revisited)

First, let’s get this out of the way: the title of this post is a joke. No chord progression has any inherent emotional quality. Musical sadness is a matter of cultural convention, and even within a culture or subculture, sadness is the result of harmony interacting with melody, rhythm, tempo, timbre, phrasing, articulation and other intangibles. The listener produces as much of the music’s meaning as the music does, if not more. That said, everything else being equal, there are some chord and voice leading combinations that reliably evoke sadness in Anglo-American listeners. The saddest chord progression that I know of comes from a short passage near the end of Vasily Kalinnikov‘s Symphony No. 1, 2nd movement. Listen at 6:16.

I mean, right? So the question is, what makes this so sad? Some of it is the orchestration and dynamics and so on. But even if you strum these chords on a guitar with minimal expressiveness, they are still sad. Let’s find out why.

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Rock Steady

I need a lot of reassurance that things are going to be okay. This Aretha Franklin groove reliably does the job for me. I say “groove” and not “song”, because while “Rock Steady” does have a minimal song structure, it’s all in support of helping you dance.

The musicians on this track represent the gold standard of R&B session players: Donny Hathaway on organ, Cornell Dupree on guitar, Chuck Rainey on bass, Bernard Purdie on drums, and Robert Popwell and Dr John on percussion. The backing vocals are by Pat Smith and Aretha’s sisters Carolyn and Erma. Aretha herself played a scratch piano part for everyone to follow, but it doesn’t sound like it made it into the final mix. According to an interview with Chuck Rainey, the musicians recorded several takes, but they ended up choosing the very first one as the released version. The Memphis Horns (Wayne Jackson on trumpet and Andrew Love on tenor sax) were overdubbed later.

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Over The Modal Rainbow

Music theory prankster Robert Komaniecki tried to ruin “Over The Rainbow” by singing it in C Phrygian mode:

@robertkomaniecki

Where are my Gregorian chant-heads at #musicmajor #musictheory #choir

♬ original sound – Robert Komaniecki

My son’s reaction to this: “Waaaaggghhh.”

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Ahmad Jamal and hip-hop

One of my favorite rap songs is “The World Is Yours” by Nas from his classic Illmatic, produced by the great Pete Rock.

Here’s Tracklib’s sample breakdown:

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