Schubert!

[Guest]

It's great to see Radio Three temporarily drop its obsession with the lowest common denominator and largest possible market share. But I can't help thinking eight-and-a-half days of nothing but German free-improv and avant-garde jazz is possibly going from one extreme to the other.

[Byas'd Opinion]

More, probably more approachable Schubert, this time with a Simon Nabatov group:

[Byas'd Opinion]

And getting stuck into some post-bop in a Berlin jazz club:

[Serial_Apologist]

As Ludwig said to Franz: "To you it may be Unfinished; to me it's still trad, man"

[Ian Thumwood]

"The architect's Blues."


A composition where the composer wants to get everyone started before the parts are ready. Even before the music has started , there are rumblings that the composer would not necessarily make the best leader for the project but the compser interjects and says that it is traditional that he takes control of the music. We are told that the audience are anxious to hear the tune and the bar is running out of beer - things need to start swiftly and there is no time to rehearse. A quick start is therefore imperative.

When the music starts, everyone realises that the different parts don't tie up and there are major conflicts with the horns and rhythm being written in different keys. In an effort to sort the score out, it is found that there is a part for an accordeon but no written parts for the saxophone. The Jazz Society who commissioned the composition specifically said they didn't want an accordeon but this is vanity issue for the architect and he proceeds on regardless. Once the parts have been sorted out, the composition ends up going on much longer than originally envisaged with the result that the musicians want more money. It all ends in a dispute because the client doesn't have the income to pay for the extra and they are contesting that they shoudn't pay anymore anyway because the composition includes an accordeon whcih wasn't what they asked for.

As far as the audience are concerned, the composition is a little bit strange. There are elements that they recognise but others which are totally incomprehensible. At one point, it looks like the whole thing is going to topple over and there are other parts which are extremely ugly. A comment is made that the composition is not very well engineered. The musicians bravely struggle on until they reach the finale and everyone is very pleased with themselves , congratulating each other on a job well done even though it was effectively only a 12-bar blues and should have gone a lot more smoothly.

Everyone tells the Jazz Society what an excellent composition they have commissioned and the society is very pleased. The musicians are now getting disgruntled as they are not getting paid in full. They say they should get more money as they had to sort the score out and it took too long to realise the composition which wasn't what they had contracted to perform. All of a sudden, it is getting very fractious and everyone is pointing the finger at the composer as it is his fault that everyone is out of pocket.

The Architect's Blues utimately prompt a new response, "The Quantity Surveyor's Blues " which is less flamboyany but the parts are all correct and it works exactly to the requirements of the Jazz Society who wonder why they let the architect loose to compose the original number in the first place.

[charles t]

Byas'd-O: Thank you for that tongue-in-cheek submission. Simon Nabatov is something else! The digital online Gods provided Roundup - Thank you!

I have attempted previously to 'gEt' Matthias Schubert.

As long as [Matthias] emenates - [Franz] will spin endlessly in his coffin.

[Serial_Apologist]

The Architect's Blues utimately prompt a new response, "The Quantity Surveyor's Blues " which is less flamboyany but the parts are all correct and it works exactly to the requirements of the Jazz Society who wonder why they let the architect loose to compose the original number in the first place.

However, a week later the club management was forced to respond following complaints in JazzWise about the switch to a new "safe" music policy. As a cost-recouping exercise, the sound mixer was entreatied to come up with a new piece based on the chord sequence to "Jumpin' with Symphony Sid", titled "The Joiner's Blues", to be played by the audience, and it was premiered the following week to huge acclaim.