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In Reply to: RE: Hate to be a party-pooper, but, posted by John Marks on May 13, 2015 at 18:14:10
"The last phrase is on 8 different chords with almost no overlap--that's why "Lush Life" is often called "the only 12-tone 'Great American Songbook' song."
I think that probably has more to do with the melody, which has every note in it except G, so we'll call it "11-tone". That is relatively unusual in the American Songbook.
Chromatic chords are not really unusual though, especially if you start including folks like Strayhorn and Ellington, but even Hoagy Carmichael did that a fair amount.
I can only get so excited about young phenoms, especially when they're going the sideshow route putting records out as kids, but I can't help but wonder if the reaction here would have been different with the audio but without video showing an 11 year-old Asian kid, and without the cheesy electric piano.
Dave
Follow Ups:
You will just have to take my word for it that had the pianist been 17 and a young woman from Norway and had she been playing a Fazioli and she had similarly refused to let the composer have the last word that the composer intended to be the last word, I would have similarly shared my lack of enthusiasm.
The last 8 chords (I have the sheet in a folder somewhere but I apparently never scanned it, and old age is making me lazy) are so lacking in centeredness and confidence and resolution. That is what the song and the music is about. Being adrift because of having been rejected. It not only doesn't need "jazzing up," it suffers from it. The 8 last syllables and 8 last chords (from memory, I don't have the sheet in front of me) just have to end without resolution and hang there.
There was a great story about 30 years ago about a young pianist playing pastiches in an Italian restaurant in NYC and he was going to town improvising and adding octaves and running up the keyboard and spreading embellishments as thickly as was the sauce on the calamari, and he had lapsed into his own little reverie, which was ended by pain and immobility in both his hands.
He opened his eyes to find this very large guy who would not have looked out of place in an episode of "The Sopranos," leaning forcefully on both the pianist's hands.
The big guy then very evenly said,
"ENOUGH WITH THE 'DIMAGGIOS.' JUST PLAY THE TUNES."
Too good to fact-check, I say!
ATB,
jm
This is like rebuking a little league baseball player for not understanding the nuances of hitting like Ted Williams........
"The last 8 chords (I have the sheet in a folder somewhere but I apparently never scanned it, and old age is making me lazy) are so lacking in centeredness and confidence and resolution. That is what the song and the music is about. Being adrift because of having been rejected. It not only doesn't need "jazzing up," it suffers from it. The 8 last syllables and 8 last chords (from memory, I don't have the sheet in front of me) just have to end without resolution and hang there."
Well, it ends on the tonic chord. It's a series of chords that leads to and ends on the tonic chord. I imagine you know that those last chords on the Coltrane/Hartman version are not Strayhorn's, they removed the contrary motion in the bass and made them parallel ascending chords. In other words they changed them just as you accuse Alexander of.
Dave
I actually think that the Coltrane/Hartman version ends up on a "bridge too far," and I don't know what temperament Hartman's last note is in, but, it sounds strained/forced/unnatural. Not what it should be.
But given Rudy van Gelder's weird production methods and the fact that Coltrane and Strayhorn were never in the studio at the same time, it's the best we have of that.
The sheet music is for an art song. Coltrane/Hartman/van Gelder/Whoever might have adjusted some harmonies, but the vocal phrase is essentially as in the copyright deposit copy--is it not??? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 syllables?
What Joey does is noodle here and noodle there and give us a lot of DiMaggios that were not on the menu. I don't like having cheap spaghetti sauce thrown at me, no matter how much fun the thrower are having at my expense.
Now here's a true artist that all of Joey's idolators must bow before, because, "He who says 'A' then must say 'B'":
Rubinstein and Horowitz, kill yourselves!
By definition, the largest number of the most meaningless notes wins!
jm
immer essen
PS: SAM TELLIG HAS HACKED MY EMAIL ACCOUNT AND I AM IN A LANDFILL IN JOHNSTON RI. LOVE TO MOTHER.
then there's letting "the composer have the last word that the composer intended to be the last word"
"Coltrane/Hartman/van Gelder/Whoever [not van Gelder!!!] might have adjusted some harmonies, but the vocal phrase is essentially as in the copyright deposit copy--is it not??? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 syllables?"
Well, Hartman pauses before the last note and then sings a C instead of an F, a fifth away from the note in the copyright deposit copy. Alexander pauses similarly on the second-last chord, repeats it once up an octave and then ends on F, the note in the copyright deposit copy.
It's easy to dismiss embellishment and call it "DiMaggios", again I'm not sure you use that language if you don't see an 11 year-old Asian boy that looks easy to dismiss. You might not like the way he played it, ok, but "he obviously has no clue about the words or the music or the harmonic structure of "Lush Life," a song he has no more right to play in public, than he has the right to recite Hamlet's "Soliloquy" in public for money." Based on what? Would you say the same for the young man in the video below?
Dave
thanks
"Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to" Mark Twain
I enjoy hearing whiz kids like this, while at the same time conceding John Marks' point that he still has a way to go.
Funny you mention Hoagy Charmichael, Lush Life reminds me of Star Dust in some ways.
Sure, and Skylark too.
Dave
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