My Musical Journey. Part 6: Aftermath.

I wasn't really into pop/rock in high school. I much preferred folk/roots music to what I heard as bubblegum music. I thought Elvis was a greasy, doughy hick. The Beatles were a teenybopper scream dream. 

But Bob Dylan's electrifying turn to rock instrumentation aroused my curiosity. And then, sitting in the parking lot at Orange Coast College waiting for class one day, I heard "Paint It, Black." I rushed out and bought "Aftermath." It was the first rock album I ever bought.

"Paint It, Black" is such a dark, angsty song that I immediately fell in love with the Rolling Stones. It was years before I found out what the song was actually about. As much as I now love the Beatles, (I even learned to appreciate the early Elvis) I have always preferred the Stones' blues-rooted rock to McCartney's music hall pop.

I still love their smart, sarcastic lyrics. And though Jagger is sometimes a parody of himself, Keith and Charlie keep them grounded and rocking hard, even into their 70s!

Not all their songs or even their albums are great, but they have amassed an unmatched catalog of incredible songs over the years. They are still the greatest rock-and-roll band in the world.

P.

My Musical Journey. Part 5: The Times They Are A'changing.

My love for folk music led inevitably to Bob Dylan. I was immediately drawn to his iconoclasm, his dry, bitter, sometimes silly sense of humor, his seeming unschooled voice, his visionary poetry, and his rage at the injustices of 50s and 60s America.

The times were a-changin' indeed.

And just I grew bored with the droning sameness of most folk music, Dylan made a radical change, embracing electric instrumentation, much to the outrage of more traditional folkies. I loved it.

Highway 61 Revisited is still one of my all-time favorite albums. It features some of his greatest lyrics and the accompaniment of some of the most interesting musician of the time: Al Cooper with his jazz-inflected keyboards and Michael Bloomfield with his endlessly inventive blues guitar riffs. Blonde On Blonde is a close second--Visions of Johanna is probably my favorite Dylan song.

My Musical Journey. Part 4: Giant Steps--John Coltrane

I had listened to jazz fair amount when I discovered Coltrane in my mid-teens. "Giant Steps" was the first album of his I listened to and it really opened my mind and my ears to what jazz was about. “Coltrane says of Giant Steps that it gets its name from the fact that ‘the bass line is a kind of loping one. It goes from minor thirds to fourths, kind of a lop-sided pattern in contrast to moving strictly in fourths or in half-steps.’ Tommy Flanagan’s relatively spare solo and the way it uses space as part of its structure is an effective contrast to Coltrane’s intensely crowded choruses.” --Nat Hentoff, original liner notes. Sure the technical stuff is interesting, but what moved, and still moves me is the sheer jumping, soaring joy of it. The man had a mighty spirit and a mighty heart. I think I have every album he ever made, and I love them all, from his early more traditional efforts to his soulful cosmic wailings suffused as they are with joy and pain and rage and love. P.

My Musical Journey. Part 3: Classical Music.

My mom introduced me to classical music at an early age. Her tastes ran toward the romantic—lots of Tchaikovsky and Chopin. That music is deep in my cells, even if it’s not entirely to my taste these days.

One vein of classical music that I enjoyed early and still love today is classical guitar . My mother’s father was an accomplished classical guitarist, and since he and my grandmother lived nearby, I heard him play Bach and many of the Spanish masters a lot. Andres Segovia was my grandfather’s idol, so we also listened to Segovia’s records over and over.

In my early teens I discovered Beethoven, who I still love. I was also exploring Norse mythology at the time, so I was drawn to Wagner’s Ring Cycle. These days I find his music ponderous and turgid, but at the time I was enamored of sheer scope of his romantic vision.

And then I discovered Bela Bartok’s Contrasts for Violin, Clarinet and Piano. It changed my world. Music that was both cerebral and emotional, without falling into sentiment. I loved the way the instruments interacted with each other, like a conversation between people with different voices and different ideas. 

I next discovered his foreboding Concerto for Orchestra, still one of my favorite pieces of orchestral music.  

P.

My Musical Journey. Part 2: Soundtracks.

The first movie I ever saw was Walt Disney’s 1954 version of “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea’ with Kirk Douglas, James Mason, and Peter Lorre. I managed to persuade my mother buy me the 45 of Kirk Douglas singing “A Whale of a Tale” from the movie, and I pretty much wore the record out. 

Here's the clip.

In my early teens, I began to buy more sophisticated soundtrack albums. It particularly loved the themes from “Exodus” and “Mutiny on the Bounty.” I then got hooked on the Bond movie soundtracks — “From Russia With Love,” “Goldfinger,” and “Thunderball.” I especially loved the Jamaican-influenced soundtrack from “Dr. No,” which led me to calypso music and Harry Belafonte and set up my later attraction to reggae music.

My Musical Journey. Part 1: Folkways Records

I’ve been thinking a lot about music during this long period of isolation. Specifically, about the music I’ve discovered over the years that has changed and shaped my musical tastes. Over the next days and weeks, I’d like to share my musical journey and I’d love to hear about yours. 

As a kid I had a small portable record player in my room that played 78 and 45 rpm records.

The first records I remember playing were children’s songs from a series of records put out by the Folkways label. My mom subscribed to the series, and once a month I'd get a new record. The songs were mostly classic folksongs like “Polly Wolly Doodle” and “Oh, Susanna.” Folkways had a decidedly leftist bent, so there were also a lot of work songs like “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.” Woody Guthrie sang “This Land is Your Land.” Pete Seeger sang “All You Lucky Campers” and “Blow Ye Winds.” 

As I got older, I graduated to 33 rpm and started listening to folk music and protest songs.

P.