Kenneth Woods- A View From the Podium

I was saddened to learn of the death of drummer, singer and songwriter Buddy Miles at the age of only 60.

Buddy Miles was a very, very good singer, and a songwriter who has contributed so true classics to the blues and funk standards, particularly “Them Changes,” which every blues rock band worth their salt knows. However, Buddy Miles earned his permanent place in music history not for his forty years as a versatile bandleader who’s talents ranged from 60’s psychedelia to singing lead for the California Raisins commercials.

No, Miles’ place in history was secured by his efforts on one night- the last night of the 1960’s when he stepped on to the stage of the Filmore in New York with bassist Billy Cox and Jimi Hendrix. The recording of that performance, later released as the album “A Band of Gypsys” will stand forever as the greatest live rock album ever made.

It was a great set all around, and Jimi generously gave Miles a chance to shine as a songwriter and singer. Hendrix had always wanted to play in a proper band rather than simply play the star turn, and the group was introduced simply as “A Band of Gypsies,” rather than “Jimi Hendrix and…” Hendrix was the most communicative and witty of rock singers, but he found singing hard work and loved having a singer with Buddy Miles’ range and flexibility in the band.

However, it is not even for the whole set that Miles is and always will be remembered, but for the band’s performance of a single song- Jimi Hendrix’s great anti-war epic “Machine Gun.” Never before or since has a popular musician captured so completely the spirit of the time, or the sheer terror and pointlessness of war. On top of this, Hendrix solo is quite simply the greatest instrumental performance in the history of amplified music. Virtuosic, evocative, terrifying, searing.

Miles was a talented guy, but his legacy is worth pondering in an age when the word “great” is so painfully overused, and music critics try to tell us that Mahler 2 is no more profound than “Love Me Do.”

The fact is, true greatness is rare, and something far beyond professionalism, talent, even genius. It is so rare that we begin to forget that is is real and unmistakeable, and that the great truly is better than the good, painful as that may be for some to accept. Buddy Miles will be remembered long after even better drummers and singers than he are forgotten because he was a part of the greatest 12 minutes in rock ‘n’ roll history, and though it was a genius who made that 12 minutes happen, Miles was good enough to make it possible for those twelve minutes to happen. He and Billy Cox were the ones who created the space in which Hendrix could take rock, funk, and blues music as far as it would be taken. For the millions of us lucky enough (as Simon Rattle often says) not be geniuses, there is a lesson in this.

New York Times obit here.

YouTube is not really up to the job of delivering Machine Gun as it should be seen and heard (and none of the clips I found were complete… stupid YouTube), but the curious can find a clip of that show here. Actually, since pointless wars and meaningless killing are back in fashion big-time these days, go and listen to the damn song, then buy the album and listen loud.

A view from the podium

It’s not unusual for two orchestras to appear together, especially when one is a youth orchestra playing alongside an adult ensemble. I’ve also seen multiple college orchestras band together to tackle big works like Rite of Spring or the Mahler symphonies. These projects are NOT easy to pull off (and nearly impossible when more than one conductor is involved)

One close colleague of mine is in the midst of just such a project- a side by side with a YO and a SO (the two organizations actually have similar budgets). As sometimes happens, the partnership is highlighting the relative strengths of the two organizations in ways that should give one group pause….

 I offer this quote both for it’s intrinsic humor and as a thought to ponder for an organization tempted to go down the path of the second orchestra in this scenario…

can i just say for the reord to blow off steam- that the _SO folks are some of the classiest poeple i know and the _YO poeple- i will NEVER stick my neck out for them AGAIN!!!!!!! they have stuck the _SO with every bill, every job, every thing….such an utter lack of class I have NEVER wittnessed in my life…i am beyond horrified at this point- just numb………………………………….but i mean, really- at a certain point what does one say???? if you are raised in a barn i guess you just do act like an animal….

A view from the podium

Upcoming Concert-

Sunday, March 9, 2008

7:30 PM

Studio 1, Llandaff

Contemporary Music Ensemble of Wales
Ian Pace, piano soloist

Xenakis- Akrata
Brown- Novarra
Downie- forms 7 (non-mediated forms)
Mefano- Interferences

Live Recording for Radio 3’s Hear and Now

More details here

A view from the podium

Having finished the first part of the dress rehearsal for my Kelvin Ensemble concert with a rather raucous (in the best sense) run-through of Wagner’s Rienzi Overture, I called a break. Across the hallway from the breathtakingly beautiful Bute Hall is another architectural treasure on the Glasgow University Campus- the Hunterian Museum.

Now, it is not every day that one can combine a dress rehearsal with a visit to a museum (unless the concert is in the museum), so I had to take advantage of my fifteen minutes of freedom to see as much as I could of the Hunterian.

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A view from the podium

This week, having Sibelius 2 and Schelomo on my desk at the same time has been a fascinating contrast. 

Although his music sounds like no one else’s, Sibelius’ technique is a logical outgrowth of the method of working with motivic cells perfected by Beethoven and Brahms. It takes to an extreme the ideal of everything in the piece evolving organically out of what is presented first. In the case of the 2^nd Symphony, the three-note cell that opens the piece becomes the seed of all that is to grow and develop in the piece- much like the famous beginning of Beethoven 5. Sibelius not only reveals every imaginable melodic outgrowth of that cell, he also shows that the ways of working with the idea can become ideas in and of themselves- starting off the beat (as the opening does) or starting on the beat (as the first woodwind statement does) becomes an idea in its own right to be developed and played with. Rigor is the name of the game- there is nothing allowed that is not essential, integrated and organic. Read more…

A view from the podium

To my surprise and delight, my post on repetition in rehearsal has attracted a number of really interesting comments, including three fascinating ones from choral conductors. First was this one from regular Vftp commenter John on his outstanding blog, then this one from Seattle based Richard Sparks and most recently this one from Chris Rowbury, who, like John and Richard, has an excellent blog and is based in the UK.

Chris writes something very true and perceptive that also brought to mind a concept that has been nibbling at my sub-conscious for some time….

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A view from the podium

It is a grey, February afternoon in 1986. A blast of arctic air has settled across the Midwest that promises to chill the bones for several days to come. In this climate the cozy college town looked rather austere and foreboding. Your author had grown up on a Big-Ten campus, and a bigger campus at that, but where his home-town school has a laid back, Bohemian vibe, this one looks and feels more conservative, more old-world. 

Having gotten lost on the short walk from the Union to the music building, this observer was nearly late for the fateful tour of the School of Music. Not that it would have mattered- when he returned as a student five months later, he was amazed at how misleading many of his initial impressions were. Starting from the office of admissions, the imperious sounding Associate Assistant Dean of Admissions, or whatever his title was, led us in a loop through the main buildings- the “old building” and the “round building.” We then made ready to cross to the “new building” (now, 20 years later the “music practice building”), gathering for the first time in front of the façade at the front of the world’s biggest music school. 

Across the top of the building were a number of names of great composers. Our host was keen to draw our attention to one in particular. “Yes, we’re quite embarrassed about that one. Apparently he was very popular in the 1950’s, when this building was put up. It’s amazing how wrong people can get things! Such horrible, simplistic, naïve, cliché-ridden music!” He chortled in smug satisfaction. 

“We’ve looked into tearing it down, but because of the age of the building there is a concern that if we replaced him with a more legitimate composer, the stone wouldn’t match. Anyway, it really is a huge embarrassment to the whole School of Music that he’s up there.” The composer?Jean Sibelius. 

Hear KW conduct Sibelius’ 2^nd Symphony this Saturday, February 23^rd in Bute Hall, Glasgow with the musicians of the Kelvin Ensemble. Also on the program is Wagner’s Overture to Rienzi, and Bloch’s Schelomo. And the outcome of the campus tour? 

Lord forgive me…. I went there anyway.   

A view from the podium

Many years ago, when I was beginning to get very serious about conducting, I used to take every possible opportunity to talk to other conductors about the intricacies of the craft.

One established maestro who was very generous with his time was Oakland East Bay Symphony conductor Michael Morgan, who I cornered at a festival where I wasn’t even studying or working. In addition to giving me a very helpful lesson on Rite of Spring (his top tip- look for lyricism and color in the piece- there’s a lot there and it is often under-conceptualized and under-rehearsed), we also talked a lot about general approaches to rehearsal technique.

Michael said (as I recall- with apologies if I mis-quote) that the most valuable thing he had learned from watching Solti rehearse for many years in Chicago was Solti’s absolute refusal to repeat himself in rehearsals- and it was the rapid loss of that part of the orchestra’s culture that he thought was the most serious set-back of the post-Solti years.  

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A view from the podium

I can scarcely imagine a more irrelevant institution than the Grammys. I suppose the classical version of the awards, which seems to exist solely in a parallel universe entirely free of television cameras is quite useful and harmless as these things go- at least it helps sell a few CDs, but the mainstream bit of the awards has always struck me as representing all the worst aspects of the music business.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I woke to find that Herbie Hancock, who would have to be near the top of any educated music-lover’s list of greatest living American musicians, actually won Album of the Year. For the record (no pun intended), this is only the second time a jazz album has won the award (the last time was 1965, when Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto’s “Getz/Gilberto” won).

I suppose it is a sign of complete lack of understanding of what is “really” important in life that I see it as a good thing that a man who has amassed one of the most jaw-droppingly amazing bodies of work of any musician in the last fifty years wins an award. Apparently members of the audience and members of the pop music critical establishment (don’t even get me started on them) are saying that Hancock’s win is an outrage and a sure sign that the Grammys are becoming irrelevant.

So, I offer some examples of past Grammy winners from more relevant years, when the Grammy voters really understood what was important about music….

The 1980’s offered an astounding run of Grammy relevance, when the back to back winners of Album of the Year were (note- classical music is not eligible for consideration in this category. We are scum and have to learn to love life in our little off-TV ghetto)….

1983- Toto- Toto IV (apparently, the Grammys met them all the way, Rosanna, yeah….)

1984 Michael Jackson- Thriller (okay, at least this one made a lot of money, but, er, ah… oh never mind….)

1985 Lionel Richie- Can’t Slow Down (Because I’m already at a full stop. The highpoint of the jheri-curl movement)

1986- Phil Collins- No Jacket Required (possibly the greatest recording of the 20^th C.! This would have been the clear winner in any year)

Don’t forget, Milli Vanilli won for best new artist in 1990 before having their award revoked on the grounds that they didn’t actually sing on their album. Oh yes, Billy Ray “achy-breaky-heart” Cyrus was nominated in 1994….

Rock on, or rockit, Herbie Hancock!

A view from the podium

I’m spending the first of three weekends this month in one of my favorite cities, Glasgow.

I fell in love with the town last year when I was here conducting the Kelvin Ensemble, and I probably would have come back just to see the city again even if I loathed the band and was conducting the worst repertoire on earth, but fortunately, I did not have to contend with either possibility.

On the docket for this program is (among other things) Sibelius 2 and Bloch’s masterpiece, Schelomo. The two works may seem like rather strange bedfellows. After all, Sibelius was at heart a bit of a musical puritan- his prescription was that composers ought to serve their audiences cold, clear water, while Bloch mixes exotic, aromatic and rather decadent cocktails. After combining Firebird and Elgar’s Violin Concerto last week– marvelously dis-similar works finished with five weeks of each other– I think I’m onto a new theme this month: pieces that don’t go together at all except that they do.

However, as one wades into the deep end with both pieces and tries to make sense of them, there are some notable parallels. In particular, both works reveal their creator’s fascination with the possibilities of the superimposition of multiple types of subdivision. In both pieces, you might well hear two over three over four over six at any given time. Bloch eventually takes things much farther than even Sibelius, layering complex rhythms (for instance a cannon built of three rhythmic cells, one based on a triplet subdivision, one based on a quintuple subdivision and one based on duple subdivision) in three four over one in duple meter (that itself combines duple and triple subdivisions). While these sorts of textures and layers may create some rather formidable logistical challenges for conductor and players (two bars are actually bordering on unconductable as written), sorting them out is strangely and addictively satisfying. There’s nothing better (other than the obvious) than getting those pulling “fours” to stretch with equal tension and intensity over the prevailing “threes,” while someone else is wailing away on a “five.”

Schelomo might be the only piece I’ve ever been tempted to bring a Bible to rehearsal for, and not because I want to pray we get through the piece without a train wreck. Bloch originally conceived the piece as a vocal setting of the text of the Book of Ecclesiastes as written by King Solomon (“Schelomo” in Hebrew), but his conception eventually outstripped  possibilities of any human voice, and by giving the narrative voice to the cello he was able to create a purely musical structure that is not confined to one interpretation. Still, I can’t ever escape the magisterial tones of my old teacher Fritz Magg, as he would speak every time he prepared to play the long “a” that begins the piece— (to be said in the voice of an old man) “vanity of vanities, all is vanity….” I was talking to our soloist, a very promising student from the RSAMD, and suggesting she spend some time with Solomon’s writings and come up with her own ideas about what bits of text might have gone with which bits of the music. Bloch left us free to make our own decisions, but it’s well worth trying to create a plausible picture of the story he wanted to tell- not to tell the audience but to find our own voice in the piece. I’ve certainly got points in the piece that I can barely separate from the text, but I think reading aloud from the Old Testament in rehearsal would be a sure form of career suicide.

“As will be seen, I had no descriptive intentions. I was saturated with the Biblical text and, above all, with the misery of the world, for which I have always had so much compassion.”

Bloch writing about his setting of Ecclesiastes in Schelomo

Schelomo is right up there with the Elgar and Shostakovich 1^st concerti for pieces that I’ve played so many times (and taught so many times) that I have to struggle not to boss the poor soloist around…. Cellists who’ve done those with me: I apologize for being a bossy pain in the ass. I’m really, really trying, but trust me, that bow-stroke just won’t be heard in a hall, and he never accents the downbeat in that theme, and  (shit, I did it again)….

My hotel is tucked away on one of Glasgow’s less attractive side streets, but I’ve discovered a little piano bar across the street with a chef who has a real command of French classics- I had a stupendous lapin a la moutard (thumper in mustard) last night, and the moules are also first rate, and amazingly fresh. I also found one of the best coffee joints I’ve found in Britain- coffee bars are everywhere here, but the standard of baristas tends to be abysmal. Today— yum, yum, yum…. My breakfast latte beckons already.

A view from the podium

From my friend Michael Steinberg, eminent musicologist, after his first night out with the Oregon East Symphony (if you know Michael’s inimitable way of speaking, it is even funnier)…

“This orchestra drinks like…. a German orchestra…..”

I’m not really sure what that means, but it sounds good.

Michael later suggested we write a grant for a musicologist-in-residence so that he would have ample time to sample all the local beers and wines…..

A view from the podium

When it works best, the interaction between a conductor and soloist is a true collaboration, but it takes great trust and a real feeling of being on the same wavelength for both parties to work at their best together. I don’t think it’s any surprise that some of my favorite projects this year have been with soloists I’ve known the longest such as Parry Karp in October at the SMP, and Jorja Fleezanis last week at the OES.

Ideally, an orchestra should get much more out of a soloist than simply a bitchin’ rendition of the solo part. When a project really works out, the soloist leaves something of their experience and artistry behind as part of the tone-culture of the band. Over the years, the impact of the myriad guest artists on an orchestra’s playing can be almost as profound as that of the conductors.

In Jorja’s case, I was not only keen for the musicians to learn from her playing of the Elgar, but for her to have the opportunity to share some of her vast experience as an orchestral musician with the players of the OES. 

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A view from the podium

The question was a hanging curveball to my colleague, a cello soloist and professor….

 ”So what are you planning to do with your sabbatical?”

 ”I am going to conquer the world, one retirement home concert at a time.”

A view from the podium