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[Serial_Apologist]

He succeeded with me . Never a huge fan of this album, but I liked Django's description of it as an album with a Blue Plaque on it - certainly of historical interest.

Django's reworking of it certainly showed some aspects of the music that had not been apparent previously.

I'm happy to give KLG some rope to explore these non-Jazz issues.

I always feel that the really interesting music on this album and the Magical Mystery Tour LP that is largely SP outtakes probably took place after the various end-of-track fade-outs!

[Ian Thumwood]

Not familiar with the Sargent Pepper album and , to be honest, I have never listened to a great deal by The Beatles. I think that there are some tunes they composed which are really good ("She's leaving home," "Strawberry Fields", etc) but I have always been deeply suspicious of them.

There was an interesting documentary last night on BBC2 with Howard Goodall which scrutinised this record in depth. I wish I have caught the earlier part because the claims made by Goodall for this record were little short of extraordinary. I quite like Goodall but, in my opinion, he has the ability to over-praise the mundane and last night's documentary suggested that Paul McCartney was switched on to writing modal music, George Harrison had offered a hybrid of Western and Indian music which pushed both in to unchartered territory and also suggested that The Beatles were influenced by Cage and Stockhausen. I would welcome any kind of musical analysis in this depth but it you are going to make assertions along these lines, I think there needs to be a balance.

One of the comments applauded Ringo Starr's "orchestral" style fills on the drums and this was the point where I got a bit cynical because Goodall seemed to be making some grand claims for pretty basic music. Everything was a mark of genius whereas the reality remained that their music is pretty basic and the "more musical" elements were probably scored by George Martin. I don't think any of the four band members could read music and none were technically above O Level. Starr's drumming has long since been a source of ridicule and maybe a more balanced programme should have looked at de-mystifying the music.

I quite like some of their songs but there has always been a nagging doubt that their music is massively important from a social point of view and of negligible merit from a technical perspective. The grand claims made by Goodall were totally out of proportion with the simplicity of the music. I kept wondering what kind of job he would do of analysing Duke Ellington's music or looking in to Gil Evans.

From a 20th century perspective, The Beatles represent one of the first times that white musicians dictated a trend in popular music as Afro-American music had previously been the driving force. This is another area where I am less than enthralled by the notion of The Beatles. Incidentally, the documentary was followed by the excellent film called "The Sapphires" which is set in the 1960's and took as it's theme the popularity of Soul music in Australia at the time. Notwithstanding that this is a hugely underrated film, it also served as a reminder that there were other popular music styles around at that time which, to my ears at least, seem far more authentic.

I don't think that there has ever been such a wide disparity between musical ability and popularity as has been the case with The Beatles. From a jazz perspective, their success seems worse because of the detrimental effect it had on the popularity of jazz with countless jazz musicians playing at that time citing that the "British invasion" made things very difficult for jazz and helped to lead to the closure of many jazz clubs, As opposed to celebrating The Beatles, I have a less favourable impression and think that the jazz community actually has a lot to be resentful to them for. I can understand that there are many jazz musicians who grew up listening to The Beatles, whether it is Bill Frisell, John Scofield or a host of British jazz musicians around at that time and appreciate their affection for this music. I can equally appreciate that it captured the zeitgeist of the time. However, whenever a critic, musician or journalist is fawning over pop music (some of which I really enjoy) I am always put in mind by Steve Lacy's curmudgeonly response that there is too much jazz composition out there to play to merit playing pop music.

I guess that I am going to probably be alone in this respect on this thread ( although I think that Jazzrook might be a possible ally) but are we in danger of affording The Beatles too much respect?

[Ian Thumwood]

Not familiar with the Sargent Pepper album and , to be honest, I have never listened to a great deal by The Beatles. I think that there are some tunes they composed which are really good ("She's leaving home," "Strawberry Fields", etc) but I have always been deeply suspicious of them.

There was an interesting documentary last night on BBC2 with Howard Goodall which scrutinised this record in depth. I wish I have caught the earlier part because the claims made by Goodall for this record were little short of extraordinary. I quite like Goodall but, in my opinion, he has the ability to over-praise the mundane and last night's documentary suggested that Paul McCartney was switched on to writing modal music, George Harrison had offered a hybrid of Western and Indian music which pushed both in to unchartered territory and also suggested that The Beatles were influenced by Cage and Stockhausen. I would welcome any kind of musical analysis in this depth but it you are going to make assertions along these lines, I think there needs to be a balance.

One of the comments applauded Ringo Starr's "orchestral" style fills on the drums and this was the point where I got a bit cynical because Goodall seemed to be making some grand claims for pretty basic music. Everything was a mark of genius whereas the reality remained that their music is pretty basic and the "more musical" elements were probably scored by George Martin. I don't think any of the four band members could read music and none were technically above O Level. Starr's drumming has long since been a source of ridicule and maybe a more balanced programme should have looked at de-mystifying the music.

I quite like some of their songs but there has always been a nagging doubt that their music is massively important from a social point of view and of negligible merit from a technical perspective. The grand claims made by Goodall were totally out of proportion with the simplicity of the music. I kept wondering what kind of job he would do of analysing Duke Ellington's music or looking in to Gil Evans.

From a 20th century perspective, The Beatles represent one of the first times that white musicians dictated a trend in popular music as Afro-American music had previously been the driving force. This is another area where I am less than enthralled by the notion of The Beatles. Incidentally, the documentary was followed by the excellent film called "The Sapphires" which is set in the 1960's and took as it's theme the popularity of Soul music in Australia at the time. Notwithstanding that this is a hugely underrated film, it also served as a reminder that there were other popular music styles around at that time which, to my ears at least, seem far more authentic.

I don't think that there has ever been such a wide disparity between musical ability and popularity as has been the case with The Beatles. From a jazz perspective, their success seems worse because of the detrimental effect it had on the popularity of jazz with countless jazz musicians playing at that time citing that the "British invasion" made things very difficult for jazz and helped to lead to the closure of many jazz clubs, As opposed to celebrating The Beatles, I have a less favourable impression and think that the jazz community actually has a lot to be resentful to them for. I can understand that there are many jazz musicians who grew up listening to The Beatles, whether it is Bill Frisell, John Scofield or a host of British jazz musicians around at that time and appreciate their affection for this music. I can equally appreciate that it captured the zeitgeist of the time. However, whenever a critic, musician or journalist is fawning over pop music (some of which I really enjoy) I am always put in mind by Steve Lacy's curmudgeonly response that there is too much jazz composition out there to play to merit playing pop music.

I guess that I am going to probably be alone in this respect on this thread ( although I think that Jazzrook might be a possible ally) but are we in danger of affording The Beatles too much respect?

[Jazzrook]

Ian

The Beatles always bored me and am proud to say that my record collection is a Beatles-free zone. I always preferred listening to The Stones & blues in the early '60s.
Frank Zappa dismissed The Beatles' music as 'just love songs' and his great 1968 album 'We're Only In It For The Money' featured a brilliant parody of the Sgt. Pepper album cover.
John Lydon has also criticised their songs as 'not being socially accurate enough'.
Looking forward to seeing 'American Epic' on BBC4 tonight(10pm) which features Mississippi John Hurt.

JR