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3 out of 3 found this helpful: Poet with a poor voice
Review: Essential Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen only became known as a singer by his achronistic birth: time retreating 200 years, he would have made it as a very compitent poet. Cohen is one of the few authors of songs that write anything worth going over, and over, and over... as a poet should be (the other notable poets-who-can-sing: our own 崔健, and, to a much lesser degree, 罗大佑).
But...what a terrible, monotonous voice he had! I once listened to an album of other people singing Chen's songs and, man, ain't I floored by joy! The fact that so many fans are mesmerized by even Cohen's voice, to me, only testifies his great power over us, so that we choose to ignore the less appealing aspects of his art.
I can't help offering the lyrics of one song for you to get a taste of what I am talking about. These are just what I can remember, and certainly not the greatest. An initiation, merely.
Joan Of Arc
Now the flames they followed Joan of Arc
as she came riding through the dark;
no moon to keep her armour bright,
no man to get her through this very smoky night.
She said, "I'm tired of the war,
I want the kind of work I had before,
a wedding dress or something white
to wear upon my swollen appetite."
Well, I'm glad to hear you talk this way,
you know I've watched you riding every day
and something in me yearns to win
such a cold and lonesome heroine.
"And who are you?" she sternly spoke
to the one beneath the smoke.
"Why, I'm fire," he replied,
"And I love your solitude, I love your pride."
"Then fire, make your body cold,
I'm going to give you mine to hold,"
saying this she climbed inside
to be his one, to be his only bride.
And deep into his fiery heart
he took the dust of Joan of Arc,
and high above the wedding guests
he hung the ashes of her wedding dress.
It was deep into his fiery heart
he took the dust of Joan of Arc,
and then she clearly understood
if he was fire, oh then she must be wood.
I saw her wince, I saw her cry,
I saw the glory in her eye.
Myself I long for love and light,
but must it come so cruel, and oh so bright?
2005-12-14 23:50 | 5 comments
2 out of 2 found this helpful: So great and so young....
Review: Blue Light Til Dawn
A great example of human voice as a fine-tuned musical instrument.
The span of the album is truly amazing: from Billie-Holiday-styled wistful abandon, to Betty Carter's loose, spontaneous contemporary cabaret, to the African wilderness sound. Every minute detail is put there fore a reason, and not one drumbeat feels out of place.
In a way this is a concerto, incorporating contrasting elements of accoustics and organizing them into a rich and integrated whole. Thoroughly enjoyable.
2005-12-14 23:47 | comment
2 out of 2 found this helpful: Good rendition of great songs
Review: Strauss: Vier letzte Lieder; Arabella
I am among those who believe the "Four Last Songs" from Richard Strauss, among other things, are evidence that God does exist, and that this God does have a conscience; for how else could you explain these sublime compositions, other than His apology for all the misery and sorrow He has caused among us mortals?
I strongly recommend that, when you find this album, the first thing you do is read the lyrics carefully. Don't try to merely listen to the voice. You won't appreciate the beauty of the song cycle that way. Seldom is the musical composition so perfectly and closely suited to the lyrics---nay, the very words pronounced at any given moment.
My favorite is the Jesse Norman rendition, among Philips Best 50. Norman captures the searing intensity of the Spring Song much better than Schwartzkopf here; the rest is a matter of personal taste. The bottomline is how "German" you want to hear them made out to be. Ironically, Norman, an African-American, sounds more German than the very blond, very Teutonic Schwartzkopf (favorite of Hitler and Goering), when it comes to Late 19th and early 20th German songs. Compared to the (occasionally excessive ) sweetness of Schwartzkopf, Norman, who is an accomplished Wagnerian, carries the right austerity, and what I term the "doom dignity", that is essential to Wagner and Strauss.
2005-12-14 23:45 | comment
1 out of 1 found this helpful: Daddy Muddy
Review: King Bee
Yeah, he is coming, alright, in every sense of the word. Muddy would have liked the double meaning and sexual innuendo in this. For he was a transgressive hero in Blues: the first and second song in my favorite album are titled "I am a King Bee" and "Champaign and Reefer", respectively.
Muddy cast a strong spell on me and a few other fair-hair boy types that I know, for reasons we understand not. For we are certainly not into Muddy's "Ding-ies". Is it the freedom in his delivery? The magnetism of his voice? The heartbreaking, boyish abandon that we can identify with? Or it it the electric guitar---ohhhh the guitar......in Muddy's hands that is the Devil's very own instrument...
My projection is that the Muddy revival will be gaining additional momentum everywhere in the next few years, especially outside of US, even though his non-American fans are staying in the fringe at the moment. European members: what do you see in Alt-Europa out there?
2005-12-14 23:43 | comment
1 out of 1 found this helpful: Lush life, indeed.
Review: Lush Life
There is an undercurrent of profound sorrow in most of Billy Strayhorn's compositions. For those of you who don't listen to Jazz very much: Billy is the long-time associate of Duke Ellington. These two men's dramaticaaly different personalities result in a rare marriage of artistic subtlety and commercial success, of the Duke's Band.
"Lush Life", for instance, fascinates me tremendously with its mixture of despair (lyrics) and upward swing (score). To give you some idea of the spirit that dominates this whole album:
LUSH LIFE
(Billy Strayhorn)
I used to visit all the very gay places
Those come-what-may places
Where one relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life
To get the feel of life...
From jazz and cocktails.
The girls I knew had sad and sullen gray faces
With distant gay traces
That used to be there you could see where they’d been washed away
By too many through the day...
Twelve o’clock tales.
Then you came along with your siren of song
To tempt me to madness!
I thought for a while that your poignant smile was tinged with the sadness
Of a great love for me.
Ah yes! I was wrong...
Again,
I was wrong.
Life is lonely again,
And only last year everything seemed so sure.
Now life is awful again,
A troughful of hearts could only be a bore.
A week in paris will ease the bite of it,
All I care is to smile in spite of it.
I’ll forget you, I will
While yet you are still burning inside my brain.
Romance is mush,
Stifling those who strive.
I’ll live a lush life in some small dive...
And there I’ll be, while I rot
With the rest of those whose lives are lonely, too..
2005-12-14 23:41 | comment
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