Friday Miscellanea

I don't really care for jazz for reasons I have discussed before, but at the same time, there are jazz musicians I have a great deal of respect for. Miles Davis, of course. But the one jazz musician that always impresses me with his sheer creative spirit and imagination is Sun Ra. The New York Times has this guide to his work: 5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Sun Ra.

Now we’re putting the spotlight on Sun Ra, the experimental pianist, organist and bandleader whose idiosyncratic blend of jazz imagined life on other planets. Born Herman Poole Blount in Birmingham, Ala., he wore ornate robes and Egyptian headgear, and composed progressive music meant to commune with Saturn, a place he said he felt a connection with after an out-of-body experience in college. “My whole body was changed into something else,” Sun Ra once said. “I could see through myself.” He said aliens spoke to him: “They would teach me some things that when it looked like the world was going into complete chaos, when there was no hope for nothing, then I could speak, but not until then. I would speak, and the world would listen.” In turn, Sun Ra’s music centered on space travel as a form of Black liberation. He believed Black people would never find freedom on Earth, and that real emancipation resided in the cosmos. Over the course of his career, Sun Ra recorded more than 200 albums with his band — called the Arkestra — before his death in 1993 at 79.

* * *

The Observer offers a listening plan: Feed your soul: the 31-day classical music diet for January.

Choices have been shaped, in part, by the cold, dank days and long nights of January. A summer regime would have been altogether more airy. Away from live encounters in the concert hall, my preference tends to be contemplative and often quiet: a measure of what level of noise I want coming in through my headphones and invading rather than enhancing my day’s activities. You may have a different appetite for musical jolts and thumps and pulsating rhythms. All the composers here can provide that option too, easy to find with a bit of YouTube-ing or Googling. The boundaries of classical music are ever more porous and open, spilling into other forms and all to the good. Give up prejudice or fear or indifference. Open your ears. Get listening.

For today she recommends "Clair de lune" by Gabriel Fauré:

* * *

Rehashing some controversies: I’m going to a classical music concert for the first time. What should I know?

Classical music is surprisingly controversial.

For some, it’s a pinnacle of cultural achievement. For others it perpetuates class inequality and upholds “white middle class social domination”.

To controversy, we can add contradiction! We love to hear the instruments and idioms of classical music in film and television (think of the theme from The Crown or the music from the Harry Potter films), but experience has shown classical music is most effective at repelling loiterers from public spaces.

But this is mostly a guide for beginning concert attendees.

* * *

A Black Composer’s Legacy Flourishes 500 Years After His Birth from the New York Times.

Lusitano was an African-Portuguese composer and music theorist who was most likely born between 1520 and 1522, and who died sometime after 1562. Probably the child of an enslaved African woman and a Portuguese noble, Lusitano traversed Europe in a career that saw him depart the Iberian Peninsula for Rome as a Catholic priest in 1550 and, around a decade later, relocate from Italy to Germany as a married Protestant.

He wrote sacred and secular vocal music, taught extensively and produced scholarship that includes a unique manuscript treatise on improvised vocal counterpoint. But until recently, Lusitano has been mostly overlooked by music histories. He has been omitted altogether in some instances, and his appearances in centuries of academic literature have consistently minimized his biography.

* * * 

What Happens to Songwriters When AI Can Generate Music?

BandLab CEO Meng Ru Kuok says that having tools to spark song creation makes a huge difference for young music-makers, who, so far, seem to be the biggest adopters of this technology. Meng claims his AI-powered SongStarter tool, which generates a simple musical loop over which creators can fashion a song, makes new BandLab users “80% more likely to actually share their music as opposed to writing from zero.” (Billboard and BandLab collaborated on Bringing BandLab to Billboard, a portal that highlights emerging artists.)

Other applications for generative AI include creating “entirely new formats for listening,” as Endel co-founder/CEO Oleg Stavitsky says. This includes personalized music for gaming, wellness and soundtracks.

Can I remain skeptical? My enjoyment of popular music plummeted when drum machines and autotune became ubiquitous. I guess it could plunge even further!

* * * 

How about some music? Let's start with a little Sun Ra. This is "Satellites are Spinning" with vocalist June Tyson.

Here is a mid-16th century motet by Vicente Lusitano:

Finally, here is a song by the Incredible String Band from the days before pop music came to rely on technology:

For a bonus, frequent commentator Steven Watson just posted one of his compositions today. Here is the Prelude and Fantasy: