I would generally consider myself to have a pretty broad range of musical taste although I think the only extends to music that is of artistic merit. However, there are a few idioms which I have a real blind spot for and one of those is folk music. I feel that as someone who loves history I should be more appreciative but there is something about it which is repellant. I think the music is transcends being nerdy. In some quarters you might argue that acoustic blues is a form of folk music and I could be convinced that a wider definition of the term could include the likes of Blind Lemon Jefferson in to this idiom. However, in the UK is seems to be associated with grim tales of dark, satanic mills or whimsical accounts of country maidens. Diddly-dee Irish folk music is even worse (even worse than Scottish bagpipes, imo ) and it is only a matter of adding a wash of synthesizers before you end up with the musical excrement that is Enja or the soundtrack to "Titanic." There is no excuse for producing something as dire as this albeit a different kind of "dire" to the music produced by my next target.
I put in mind of a couple of issues to commence this thread. One of these is the fact that 1913 marks the centenary of the musical embarrassment that was Benjamin Britten. Given his unsavory predeliction for young boys, it's amazing his reputation as remained intact but his setting of English folk music is especially unforgivable. Britten achieved the unimaginable feat of producing music that is more embarrassing for most Brits than Gilbert & Sullivan. It's strange how other people's folk music always seems better. I love the stuff Bartok produced and the folky-themes of Janacek are cool. Even the likes of Gottschalk throwing in folk themes in some of his compositions is appealing. However, whenever most British composers utilise folk themes you are put in mind of being sick from school as a child and witnessing "The Spinners " on Pebble Mill. (When my sister was very small, she used to love The Spinners and cried one Christmas when their latest LP that she was given as a present transpired to enclose a record by Shirley Bassey - I think I would have cried too!! ) By and large, anything from the British Isles tend to sound embarrassing and it is only in the hands of a genius like Frederick Delius that you can forgive anyone to mining this seam although the likes of Vaughan Williams had a good go. Britten , however, makes you ashamed to be English in his dabbling with folk music. I suppose that BBC Radio 3 will be choc-a-bloc with Britten tributes in 2013 and we can expect JRR to be sacrificed at some later stage in exchange for "Peter Grimes."
The other point I wanted to raise was that British jazz musicians have frequently borrowed heavily from folk music with mixed results. John Surman has made the idiom work whereas the likes of the late Michael Garrick seemed to stray too far into "hey-nonny-nonny" whimsy for my taste. I have never really heard American musicians tackle this reportoire which I suppose would have been too "white" or "square" to merit investigation. Curious then to hear the new Dave Douglas album which plugs into the very same British folk idiom as well as hymn music. The result was initially a bit of a shock and it took several plays before the content of the record made an impact. "Be still" is a very slow burn yet an extremely compelling album of contemporary post-bop jazz. Neither the jazz nor folk elements seem to concede to one another's integrity and the two idioms share an abrasive co-existence. I love the way that the singer's vocal's rub up against the more savvy harmonies laid down within the arrangements. The light and airy voice of Aoife O'Donovan is an inspired choice:-
I would have thought that the simplicity of the melodies and the propensity to use major triads and the resultant lack of harmonic colour would have prevented anyone making credible jazz out of this material. After repeated listening, the trumpeter has produced perhaps one of his strongest records and well as his most personal. The hymn tunes are wonderful and the setting of a simple melody like "Barbara Allen" puts this record in the same kind of category at Miles' "Sketches of Spain." The more I listen to this disc, the more impressive it seems. It also has a huge emotional clout, not only as the record consists of music performed at his mother's service but also due to the love and respect Douglas has accorded to these melodies.
I put in mind of a couple of issues to commence this thread. One of these is the fact that 1913 marks the centenary of the musical embarrassment that was Benjamin Britten. Given his unsavory predeliction for young boys, it's amazing his reputation as remained intact but his setting of English folk music is especially unforgivable. Britten achieved the unimaginable feat of producing music that is more embarrassing for most Brits than Gilbert & Sullivan. It's strange how other people's folk music always seems better. I love the stuff Bartok produced and the folky-themes of Janacek are cool. Even the likes of Gottschalk throwing in folk themes in some of his compositions is appealing. However, whenever most British composers utilise folk themes you are put in mind of being sick from school as a child and witnessing "The Spinners " on Pebble Mill. (When my sister was very small, she used to love The Spinners and cried one Christmas when their latest LP that she was given as a present transpired to enclose a record by Shirley Bassey - I think I would have cried too!! ) By and large, anything from the British Isles tend to sound embarrassing and it is only in the hands of a genius like Frederick Delius that you can forgive anyone to mining this seam although the likes of Vaughan Williams had a good go. Britten , however, makes you ashamed to be English in his dabbling with folk music. I suppose that BBC Radio 3 will be choc-a-bloc with Britten tributes in 2013 and we can expect JRR to be sacrificed at some later stage in exchange for "Peter Grimes."
The other point I wanted to raise was that British jazz musicians have frequently borrowed heavily from folk music with mixed results. John Surman has made the idiom work whereas the likes of the late Michael Garrick seemed to stray too far into "hey-nonny-nonny" whimsy for my taste. I have never really heard American musicians tackle this reportoire which I suppose would have been too "white" or "square" to merit investigation. Curious then to hear the new Dave Douglas album which plugs into the very same British folk idiom as well as hymn music. The result was initially a bit of a shock and it took several plays before the content of the record made an impact. "Be still" is a very slow burn yet an extremely compelling album of contemporary post-bop jazz. Neither the jazz nor folk elements seem to concede to one another's integrity and the two idioms share an abrasive co-existence. I love the way that the singer's vocal's rub up against the more savvy harmonies laid down within the arrangements. The light and airy voice of Aoife O'Donovan is an inspired choice:-
I would have thought that the simplicity of the melodies and the propensity to use major triads and the resultant lack of harmonic colour would have prevented anyone making credible jazz out of this material. After repeated listening, the trumpeter has produced perhaps one of his strongest records and well as his most personal. The hymn tunes are wonderful and the setting of a simple melody like "Barbara Allen" puts this record in the same kind of category at Miles' "Sketches of Spain." The more I listen to this disc, the more impressive it seems. It also has a huge emotional clout, not only as the record consists of music performed at his mother's service but also due to the love and respect Douglas has accorded to these melodies.
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