Glenn Branca Ensemble, Symphony No. 5, live, New York (The Kitchen), 1984
Part 1
***
Part 2
**********
lagniappe
Born . . . in 1949, [Glenn Branca] . . . ignored rock until attracted to the repetitiveness of certain songs by the Kinks and Paul Revere and the Raiders. He claims to have taught himself composition by listening to guitar feedback at point-blank range for forty-five minutes at a time.
—Kyle Gann, American Music in the Twentieth Century (1997)
Subtlety and delicacy aren’t usually associated with hard rock. But those are the qualities that (to these ears) stand out when you unpack this recording and hear the tracks separately. Listen to the guitar, the bass. Sledgehammers? More like sushi knives.
Someday Quine will be recognized for the pivotal figure that he is on his instrument—he is the first guitarist to take the breakthroughs of early Lou Reed and James Williamson and work through them to a new, individual vocabulary, driven into odd places by obsessive attention to On the Corner-era Miles Davis.
With voices like these you don’t need instruments.
“Father, I Stretch My Hands To Thee,” live, Mt. Moriah Baptist Church, Chester, South Carolina, 10/08
**********
lagniappe
In African American Churches in certain parts of the South Eastern United States, there still exists a style of music that pre-dates what the Gospel Music industry refers to as “Traditional Gospel Music,” founded by the late Dr. Thomas A. Dorsey. Some congregations refer to the choirs that sing the foundational “old-style” music, made up of middle-aged adults to senior citizens, as Hymn Choirs or Prayer Bands. They continue to have choir anniversaries and Fifth Sunday singings, and are very much favored for Revival services.
These hymns date back as far as 1707, and the spirituals have been passed down by oral tradition over the centuries. This sacred style of music and the traditions associated with it are in danger of disappearing as the singers go on to be with the Lord. As you listen, you may find yourself going back in time — remembering people you haven’t thought about in years. On the other hand, the music and the message may be totally foreign to you — but yet intriguing. Whatever the case, you will definitely be impacted by what you hear.
According to William T. Dargan, Ph.D., Professor of Music at St. Augustine’s College in Raleigh, North Carolina, the old style a capella “spirituals and hymns are characterized by two and three part modal harmonies, gradual but drastic quickening of tempos, frequent and strong body movements as well as polyrhythmic clapping and stomping patterns.”
“Developed by slaves during the camp meeting revivals of the early nineteenth century, spirituals are rhythmic, call-and-response song forms that continue in oral tradition among African-American congregations. ‘Lining out’ is a method of performing a psalm or hymn in which the leader gives out the words, or the melody, or both, one or two lines at a time, to be followed by the congregation. This practice began in the early seventeenth century by the British Parish Churches as an aid for those who were unable to read.”
Mixing a record, as I learned when I worked at Alligator Records (back in the 1970s), involves a seemingly countless number of decisions. After a few hours, everyone starts to get a little punch-drunk. By the end of the night, for instance, this track had morphed—in the warped warble of engineer Freddie Breitberg (AKA, in his personal mythology, Eddie B. Flick)—into “Serve Me Rice For Supper.”
Jimmy Johnson, “Serves Me Right To Suffer” (Living Chicago Blues, Vol. 1, Alligator Records, 1977 [Grammy Nominee])
. . . Van Gogh’s letters are the best written by any artist . . . Their mixture of humble detail and heroic aspiration is quite simply life-affirming.—Andrew Motion, The Guardian (11/21/09)
Here, in MP3 format, is a track featuring a guy we listened to the other day: Cecil Taylor, with drummer Tony Williams (“Morgan’s Motion,” from Williams’ 1978 album The Joy of Flying).
