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SGUD missile
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Posts posted by SGUD missile
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From what I saw of this interview on TV, it was a bit on the bizarre side, but I must confess that I rather enjoyed seeing media air-head, Matt Lauer, read publicly.
Scientologists are very wierd folks ..they will aggressively eschew prescription meds, psychiatry, all that ...
but at the same time , they place faith in such mumbo -jumbo as "audits" ..with "e-meters" to purge their minds of "engrams" ..
and all at a premium cost, of course ..
The Crooze-ster is just the latest and loudest nutjob to expond this BS ..
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Paul: seeinserted >>>>> answers below: Phil Kelly
Questions for anyone here who has produced/supervised a recording session - if you're willing to share this:How did you function as a producer? - Did you decide on musicians & tunes, or was that left to the musicians?
>>>> In my case, I was usually a co-producer on projects other than my own,usually hired for specific musical needs..such as as an arranger/conductor/mixing consultant/ etc.
Usually the choice of session players was within my job description although often, the head producer ( or artist ) may have had a comfort level with certain rhythm player choices, which was fine with me as they were all usually pro guys.
My interactions with the head producer and artist would vary ... usually I was asked for some creative input, other times I was a worker bee and did as requested period.
During the session(s), did you generally act in in a hands on or hands off manner - did you or did the musicians decide on how many takes, etc.?
>>> yes ,since this is what I was usually hired for. ( Especially with less technically oriented producers.
When the recording was released, did you decide what would be released, did the leader decide, or was it a joint decision?
>>> not my area.. except on my own projects. I was often asked to offer an opinion however ..
When the recording was released, who decided on the order of the tunes on the LP or CD? Did it ever occur that the tune order on the release was the same as the order in which they were recorded?
>>> same answer
I hope that this doesn't come off as being nosey. I'm just interested in knowing how these things happen, and I thought that others might too.
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In addition to the Les Brown band ( which was quite well known back in the 40s/50s ) other
"lesser know " big bands worth investigating:
The Sauter /Finegan Orchestra
Claude Thornhill
Boyd Rayburn
Bbobby Sherwood
Billy Butterfield
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there *is* a bootleg recording that's been..um ..floating around for the past 15 or so years purportedly of Art Blakey taking a huge noisy dump in the Village Vanguard john ..
it's been a while since I ..um ..experienced the pleasure of that audio experience, but it did seems at the time Art needed more vegetables in his diet
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I'm using OSX 10.3 now with Safari, but before I was using 8.6 with Netscape and had no problems accessing this site.. or any other one for the most part ..
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Actually, very interesting in many ways ( if a tad long winded in an academic way )
It seems to boil down to ( after a quick read through ):
Learning basic skills vs. b*******ting
( or basics vs. new technology )
Inherent meaning vs. societal usefulness
( are you attempting to say something or "create" a sellable thing )
learning from reading other points of view from other disciplines to form a view of your own.
More after I read it again ...
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I visit several BBS ..and while all of them have some great folks posting on them, this one seems to me somewhat less contentious that the others ( one in particular ), and respect for the "mainstream tradition" seems a bit higher here.
Having said that, the peanuts here ARE fresher!
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Thom Bell was one of my favorite pop arrangers back in the 70s. He definitely brought something special to all those Philadelphia Productions of the time.
Fingertip fact: Several musicians here in Bellingham have told me that THom Bell had moved here for several years but I was never able to catch up with him ( although his name was listed in the local phonebook up until 2 years ago ..)
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Having had to write charts for singers for years, I finally had to put a surcharge on "My Funny Valentine" if another chart of it was requested ..
molto ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzando!
ditto "Summertime" ( I'd always try to sell the girl singers on "My Mans' Gone Now" ..with usually little success )
"Caravan" can be cool ..if you voice it in parallel.. with all three diminished chord present
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a couple final comments:
1. I have had an ongoing problem technically with Carries voice :
Whenever she sings in her low register, her lack of training in supporting her chest voice is very noticible ..she is more often than not badly out of tune down there. I realize the reason for picking those keys is due to her propensity for choosing the "power ballads" with a very wide tessitura ( vocal range ) so she can build to the "biiiig finish " where she can rely on her vocal strength to aid in the illusion of a great performance. ( she ain't perfect pitchwise in the higher end eiither, but its less noticeable than down low. In addition to control, Carrie needs to understand the concept of "quiet intensity " when singing low. ( Think Reba McIntyre for example )
When Carrie gets to Nashville, she's gonna run into a whole s***tpile of singers who ( in their idiom ) can REALLY sing ..and are comsummate professional performers as well. Cute alone ain't gonna cut it down thar ..
2. I am TOTALLY OD'ed on faceless formula "power ballads" that all adhere to a like form and usually have little or no lasting melodic or lyrical hook to grab onto ..
verse: start waaaay low ..
interlude: start to turn on the burners ..big crescendo ..to ..
chorus: hi range, lotsa backup vocals and orchestral goo to give the illusion of profundity where none exists ..
and THEN"
repeat chorus but modulated ( usually ) up a half step..
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
3. I'm looking forward to Anwars, Tanias ,and Vonzells CDs!
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I submit for your consideration :
possibly Miles "Tutu " was the first step in such a direction ..
Marcus managed to blend the electronics and the acoustic elements quite well for me ..
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For those among us who still like big jazz bands:
I just recieved this CD yesterday, "Home of my Heart " ( Origin 82439 ) and I've only been through it once last evening, but:
IMO, this is one of the very best written , played, and recorded big band CDs I've heard in years ..bar none!
Chris is a youngish (38 ) film writer from LA ( via Germany ) and this CD really shows he has a very interesting approach to the big band format , is extremely facile in his harmonic approach ( check out the reharmonized "Cherokee" that opens the CD ), and most of all, really knows how to get the band swinging. This is excellent modern mainstream big band writing at its best.
The players are basically the usual LA team suspects that absolutely NAIL these charts, and all of it was immaculately recorded and mixed by one of the best, Al Schmidt.
It's really gonna be hard to top this CD this year in the realm of big bands.
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Comcast upu here in the frozen north ..approx. $45 p/m
sure as hell beats the ol' dial-up !
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Theres some really scary stuff there ..I've sent this to every musician I know ( and everyone teaching in a jazz program to make their sudents read this ).
Not that very many jazz guys get rich ( or even manage to keep scoring a livable wage ) but the fact that there is NO safety net back there for most players should provoke all of ya'll yo do something about security issues sooner .. rather than later.
I consider myself lucky, because like many of the guys of my generation, I have some money coming in from the AFM pension program in addition to their Social Security ..however, it should be noted that the AFM pension contributions basically came from the NON JAZZ gigs we did: shows, recording, jingles, film dates, etc.
The other interesting ( scary ) points made here are about the intellectual property aspects of the wholesale ripping off of the jazz musician commmunity by the early "jazz" labels.
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"quoting" is the actual term, but older jazz guys used to call the practice "playin' some ditties"..
Guys like Bird, Dexter, Sonny Stitt, Rollins, etc makd a real game outta this ..
On a simiar note, alto player Gabe Baltazar once wrote a tune called "Bop Suey" in which he managed to sandwich 16 bebop standards ( two bars each ) over the changes of "How High the Moon "
very clever!
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Chris, just a warning. The Pacific Northwest, although one of the most beautiful regions of the country, is as blue as it gets (unless as was mentioned earlier you want to live east of the Cascades). Washington State for example has a Democrat Governor, both Senators are Democrat, both houses of state government firmly in Dem hands and we also have some of the most progressive Representatives in the House (McDermott & Jay Inslee).
So, we welcome you to Seattle with open arms, but be warned...you just might become a liberal.
so ..whats so wrong with THAT ???
why do you think I moved here from texas ????
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Okay.
Although I have yet to settle 100% on a place yet, things are moving forward.
I meet with my attorney tomorrow to draw up the separation papers for the business. When the day comes (5/31/05), I know I'm going to hate handing the reins over
, but I'm ready and anxious to start something new. Good Luck whereever you land Catesta ..
The PNW ( both Oregon and WA ) are a bit pricey, but nothing like LA or SFO ..and the air up here is generally much better than LA.
keep in mind in both states, EAST of the Cascades is a totally different ball of wax than the WEST side ..
The east is cheaper, but it;s a lotta grassland, farms, and the odd White supremacist group here and there ( but nothing like Idaho )
the west is more expensive, greener, cooler, hipper, prettier and more open minded
finally the jazz content East of the Cascades is much less than on the Portland /Seattle/ Vancouver side!
but then again ..I'm predujiced!
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Heres some more BG on Farnon from the London Times:
>>Subject: Robert Farnon (London Times)
Robert Farnon
Prolific composer talented in both jazz and classical with a gift for
arranging orchestras in his head
London Times, April 27, 2005
Although he could have become a great figure in either jazz or the
classics, Robert Farnon became the world's greatest arranger and
composer of light orchestral music.
If his name was not immediately familiar to audiences across the
world, then his television theme music for "Panorama", "The
Prisoner", "The Secret Army" and "Colditz" were widely known, as were
his tunes "Jumping Bean", "A Star Is Born" and the "Westminster
Waltz". In the 1940s and 1950s, his scores for such movies
as "Captain Hornblower R.N." and "Maytime in Mayfair" were among his
most familiar pieces. He continued to work at the highest level for
more than half a century after that, winning his most recent Grammy
award with his instrumental arrangement of "Lament" for the
trombonist J. J. Johnson in 1995.
Once described by André Previn as "the greatest living writer for
strings", Farnon had the ability to create sumptuous orchestral
backdrops for singers and instrumental soloists alike. Yet he did not
need to work at the piano, having the rare ability to hear an entire
arrangement in his head. George Shearing recalled Farnon visiting him
at his Cotswold house before to making the 1993 album "How Beautiful
Is Night", and jotting down notes as they discussed the repertoire in
the living room. Then Farnon went back to his own home in Guernsey,
where he wrote out all the arrangements, sitting in his favourite
armchair. It was a skill Farnon had perfected as a trumpeter in Percy
Faith's CBC Orchestra in the early 40s. During his bars of rest, he
taught himself to shut out the sounds around him, in order to write
out completely new arrangements.
Robert Joseph Farnon was born in Toronto, where he played several
instruments, before settling on the trumpet and studying composition
with the expatriate Louis Waizman. As a teenager, Farnon became a
trumpeter in Faith's broadcasting orchestra in Toronto, where he
played and arranged for the "Happy Gang" show.
When jazz musicians such as Oscar Peterson or Dizzy Gillespie came to
town, Farnon would jam with them, and Gillespie in particular was
impressed with the Canadian's faultless knowledge of harmony,
nicknaming him "Beethoven". They resolved to work together while
Gillespie was still in Cab Calloway's Orchestra in 1941, but did not
manage to do so until many years later, first in an arrangement of
the folksong "Blow the Wind Southerly" in 1978, and finally in
Farnon's arrangement of "Con Alma" in 1989.
Farnon took over as conductor of Faith's band in 1940 and at the same
time he produced his first full-length classical compositions,
including two symphonies, the first of which was premiered in 1941 by
Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He might well have
continued in a classical vein had the war not intervened. He was
appointed conductor of the Canadian Band of the Allied Expeditionary
Forces, which sailed for London in September 1944. There he gave
concerts and broadcast alongside the American band of Glenn Miller
and his British counterpart George Melachrino. London became Farnon's
spiritual home, and he stayed on after the war, joining Geraldo's
Orchestra as an arranger, where his skills at transcribing the latest
American hits via a shortwave radio were particularly highly valued.
Before long he was fronting his own band, and supporting Britain's
major singing stars such as Gracie Fields, Donald Peers and Vera
Lynn, both on air and on disc. His arrangements combined a flawless
string-writing technique with the jazzy freshness of the New World,
and his output was prolific.
Often, when arranging, he adorned other composers' melodies with
dazzlingly original countermelodies of his own, weaving the end
product into a seamless whole that greatly enhanced the material he
had started with. He wrote for his own Decca recording orchestra, for
Chappell's music library of stock arrangements, and for the BBC.
His range of activities broadened ever further, as he composed and
arranged for the screen, ranging from full-scale Hollywood movies
such as "The Road to Hong Kong" with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, down
to domestic television series in the UK.
He settled in Guernsey during the 1960s, a decade when he conducted
and arranged Frank Sinatra's first London album, as well as working
with the jazz singers Sarah Vaughan and Tony Bennett.
Farnon's four Ivor Novello awards stretch from the 1950s to the
1990s, and his Grammys from the 1970s to the 1990s. He was awarded
the Order of Canada in 1998. His arranging has influenced composers
as different as Quincy Jones and John Williams, and thanks to the
diligent efforts of the Robert Farnon Society, the majority of his
most original recordings from the 1950s onwards have recently been
reissued on CD.
His wife and four children survive him.
_____
Robert Farnon, composer and arranger, was born on July 24, 1917. He
died on April 23, 2005, aged 87.
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Riddle was a good commercial arranger ( and much better know over here than Farnon ), but the actual sublties of the harmonic voicings, interior melodic lines, and command of the orchestral pallette exceed Riddles by orders of magnitude.
Well, it's those "subtleties" that I'm asking for help on. They must be so subtle that I'm missing a lot of them. Compared to Riddle's greatest work (as opposed to Riddle's "ordinary" work, which is admittedly most of it), what I've heard of Farnon certainly sounds masterful, to be sure, but lacking in that extra "creative insanity", so to speak, that I keep expecting to hear (and which I definitely hear quite often in Ogerman's work).
Which is why I was asking for technical specifics. I do speak the language, you know...
But it seems that none will be forthcoming. One guy's not equipped to do so, and the other doesn't seem to be disposed to do so. And if the preference is for Billy May over the Riddle of, say Only The Lonely, or Love, then what we might well have here is a matter of personal preference anyway, in which case, that's that.
Oh well, I'll keep digging on my own. Always learned more that way anyway, in the long run.
Thanks anyway.
JS ..I thought I was offering some details when I said:
it's in the subtleties considerring the era ..not necessarily "creative insanity" on a large scale
"harmonic voicings, interior melodic lines, and command of the orchestral pallette "
1. Harmonic Voicings ..Farnon was the first one back in the late 40s to use the concept of bitonal chord voicings ala Ravel /DeBussy WAY before any of the American guys were doing it ..( most american guys of the period emulated the gushy David Rose style ( close voiced 4 part chords with doubled leads sstacked in three octaves ..) Farnon began using say , a C Chord in four parts in the violins above a Bb chord in the vlas and celli ..much leaner and more open sound.
2.interior melodic lines ..Farnon started using "linear writing " ( actual atonal or chromatic lines to coonect key chordal points ) before Gil Evans did
3. his woodwind obbligatos on ballads ( especially for flt and clarinet ) are more like Stravinsky or Poulenc very often.
As I said, it's "subtle stuff" and granted, it's buried in an era thats basically pretty gooey overall.
Comparing him to Ogerman is hard, because Claus came into prominence some 30 years later. ( sorta like comparing Mahler to Ravel )
I suggest you try to located some of Farnons 60s stuff ( Music of Frank Sinatra and Johnny Mathis albums i.e. ) and compare them to Riddles work with Linda Ronstadt.
His film scores compare quite favoribly with the best on the Hollywood guys on any era ..Raksin, Williams, Newman, Kaper, etc.
Is that more what you were after ??
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On comparing Riddle with Farnon --
The short answer is,"They're not even on the same level."
Not counting Sinatra, I've got 10 Riddle albums. And while they're enjoyable, bouncy, and swinging, NOT ONCE have I lifted the tonearm and place it back down to find the answer to,"How the hell did he do THAT?"
As I'm not a writer or player, I'll have to opt out of the technical explanations.
Phil might well respond with,"Sent you a PM."
As he said,"I've been intensely studying Bob (Farnon) for 40 years."
Actually, Bill answered the Riddle/ Farnon question just about as succinctly as I could have.
Riddle was a good commercial arranger ( and much better know over here than Farnon ), but the actual sublties of the harmonic voicings, interior melodic lines, and command of the orchestral pallette exceed Riddles by orders of magnitude.
Actually, for the overall style of things Riddle did, I far prefer Billy Mays entire body of work IMO ..
Farnon was also a great writer of melodies ..Riddle wrote "Route 66"
Farnon could write in MANY orchestral styles ..Riddle was a bit of a one trick pony ( again IMO )
I love the line : " How the hell did he do THAT? " ..except that for the fact that early on, I transferred Farnons stuff to tape for study purposes, and literally transcribed( as best as I could )a lot of sections by ear, that's what I meant by "intensely studying" his work.
other than Riddle, my choices for employing the more sophisticated Farnon-esque devices ( Along with the aforementioned Ogerman ) were listed several posts back
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We shall pity Dmitry, proceed with the topic thread, and continue to praise Robert Farnon.
He was excellent with a swinging big band but UNRIVALED with an orchestra -- his true medium. I've already posted about the subtle (to the point of) devastating complexity of his arranging. But let me quote from the AMG site:
"In addition to its melodic content, Farnon's music is noted for its deceptively complex internal structure, which makes it as interesting as it is attractive."
Please note the lack of pretense and overt self-attention in Farnon's writing. This sublime talent reduced the pool of top arrangers to a gallery effusive in their praise. "Robert Farnon is the greatest string writier in the world," as Andre Previn said. I've read how Johnny Mandel, Quincy Jones, and John Williams were equally awestruck by Farnon while developing and honing their skills.
Let me recommend some earlier albums (the two on Philips with Quincy as Music Director and Producer):
Philips 600-038 'The Sensuous Strings of Robert Farnon' (1963)
Philips 600-098 'The Captain From Castile' (1964)
MPS/Pausa 7116 George Shearing Trio w/ Farnon Orch. 'On Target' (1979-80)
MPS-22335 Singers Unlimited w/ Farnon Orch. 'Sentimental Journey' (1974)
about which Gene Lees wrote,"It's difficult to imagine how one can improve on perfection. But they've done it."
We're talking about the art of arranging at the highest level. Within each tune, the keen listener will continuously be rewarded by Farnon's interfacing sectional music petals which slowly progress to reveal a most beautiful flower.
Thanks Bill:
Your post reinforces why arrangers have been studying his scores for years. The "subtleties " seem to escape our poster Dmitry, but that's his loss .. It wasn't lost on Previn, Mandel, Ogerman, Evans ( Marion ), Jorge Calandrelli, Jeremy Lubbock, Peter Matz, Torrie Zito, Don Costa or any of the other really accomplished arrangers/ Farnonites..
All I know, is I've been intensely studying Bob for 40 years, and he's helped turn me into a pretty good string /orchestral writer ..much more so than any BS I learned in school.
BTW: Check out the "Horatio Hornblower " score .."Lady Barbara " is one of my favorites!
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CD Baby has manged to sell about 50 of my Origin CD ( Convergence Zone )
they're a really slick operation ..they even provide a credit card service for selling CDs on gigs AND charging cover charges!
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Farnon had also written a suite for Dizzy Gillespie ( who was a big Farnon fan as well ) in the 70s which never got recorded because of some union or contractual hassles at the time.
I really would have loved to have heard that combination!
BTW: According to Dizzy, Bob Farnon was a very respectable jazz trumpet player in his early years..
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JIm R., and Dmitri, please pay attention: the orchestrator on the Phineas record is Dennis Farnon, Robert's brother.
Oops.
I maligned the innocent brother.
It was Dennis that I didn't care for.
Thanks for correcting me.
You just keep diggin' the hole deeper ..
Dennis Farnon is a friend of mine!
BARF!
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