Songs in the Key of Life

My friend Larry recently posted to his Facebook wall: "Dusted off the ol' Songs in the Key of Life album today...how can an album be any better?" My answer is that it can't get much better than that.

I think it was Christmas of 1976 when I was given Stevie Wonder's "Songs in the Key of Life" album as a gift. I was eight years old and was laid up in a body cast after having been hit by a car while playing ball in the street with my friends. An eight-year old boy in a body cast tends to receive a lot of gifts but this was my most memorable. Songs in the Key of Life is now considered to be the pinnacle of Stevie's recorded output, but even as an eight-year old kid hearing it for the first time, I knew this album was something special.

Even the packaging was something I'd never seen before: it was a double-album, but when you opened the gatefold you saw an extra 45 inside a pocket that was cut into the inside of the packaging. The album artwork, as I recall, was such that it appeared you were staring down into caverns and the 45 was at the center of it (man, I miss album artwork). There was a lyric booklet included which contained at least one full page (in a tiny font) of names that Stevie listed as influences and people to thank. The lyric booklet was done very artfully using a beautiful font throughout and was a pleasure to read through while listening to the music.

Oh, and the music...the album opened with a choir of voices (which upon closer listening is just Stevie singing all of the voice parts) leading into "Love's in Need of Love Today", a soulful, almost gospel-like plea for peace in the world that set the tone for the rest of the album - I remember being hooked as soon as I heard that song.

"Have a Talk With God" is somewhat preachy but set against a 12-bar blues/funk groove that still makes it cool.

"Village Ghetto Land" - another serious message song about the plight of the ghettos. No instrumentation to speak of except for Stevie's synthesized strings. To this point, the album sounds like it's going to be 4+ sides of "Serious news to pass on to everybody", until...

"Contusion" - Bam! This one hits you right between the eyes. Especially coming off the quiet strings of the previous track, Stevie lets his band throw down in an instrumental fusion masterpiece. Excellent guitar work on this track by Michael Sembello. This leads right into...

"Sir Duke" - probably the most popular track off the album. While this has been overplayed to death it still remains a hook-filled tribute to some of the early heroes of jazz. This track was my personal introduction to the greats mentioned in this song: Basie, Miller, Satchmo, Ella and Duke - and most likely led to my own exploration of jazz over the years.

...and that was all just Side 1!

The rest of the album remains just as strong - there's really not a weak track on the entire collection. Even the extra 45 (included in the package as "A Something's Extra") contains 4 very strong tracks. To say that Stevie was prolific is an understatement - everything about this album, including the lyric booklet, is epic. This album capped a very successfull period in Stevie's musical career - many agree that the 70's was his most creative decade - he just couldn't do wrong with the albums he released during this time. But with Songs in the Key of Life, he hit it out of the park and reached musical heights that few can only dream about.

I don't remember who it was that gave me that album 35 years ago, but it still sticks with me to this day and hasn't lost a bit of its vitality. If you're unfamiliar with this one, I can't recommend it enough.

So long, "Guitar Hero"

Activision announced recently that they are pulling the plug on their popular "Guitar Hero" game franchise. After several versions of the original GH game and many copycat followups, the games have oversaturated the market and run their course.

The passing of the GH franchise made me think about the impact the game has had on music and on potential musicians (i.e., the kids who grew up playing the game in any of its incarnations). I've talked with other musicians who instantly dismiss the entire franchise ("it doesn't teach real music"), to others who embraced it for what it was: a clever and fun exercise in hand-eye coordination. I think that folks who sound off against GH because it "doesn't teach real music" miss the point (it was never meant to be a music education game in the first place), but I also think there are some elements of music that you can pick up while playing the game: specifically rhythm and pitch relativity.

Learning rhythm is a skill that I've seen young musicians struggle with, no matter how well they can read music and play it on their chosen instrument. It's one thing to be able to read and differentiate between 8th and 16th note patterns, but it's something else entirely to be able to count and keep good time while playing those notes. One of the features of the GH games was that the "notes" you played always came at you in rhythmic patterns that matched the tempo of the song you were playing and which directly related to the actual rhythms that sounded from the music. Put another way, the game emphasized the rhythm of the notes rather than the actual notes themselves - in many ways I thought the game would actually be a good introduction to percussion, even though I'm not a percussionist...any drummers reading this post, feel free to sound off on that idea.

The second musical element that I believe you could learn from the GH games was the relativity of pitches. While the game never dealt with actual musical notes, it did present the concept of pitches and their relationship to one another (intervals, scales, chords) in an interesting graphical manner. Low notes were always played on the "low buttons" of the guitar controller and the high notes were always played on the "higher buttons". I suppose that the game did emulate the concept of a guitar neck in that respect. But more than that, the game actually attempted to space the "notes" you would play in a manner that almost made sense, musically; notes that came at you at specific intervals (thirds, fifths, etc) were translated to the controller's buttons in a way that conveyed the actual musical distance between those notes. As you played a guitar solo that featured an ascending scale run, the "notes" were presented in an ascending pattern that you followed on the controller. Granted, the controller only had 6 buttons so the range of notes that could be mapped to the controller was limited...but the idea was musically correct. Even chords were played by holding down more than one button at a time, conveying the concept that a chord is made up of two or more notes played simultaneously.

I think that young kids who grew up playing these games will at least be a little more prepared for the real thing when they put down the plastic controllers, pick up an actual guitar and sign up for lessons. To that end, I think the GH games were a good introduction to some of the mechanics of music. And if by playing those games, a kid's interest in learning real music has been sparked, then I think it's been a positive influence.

John McLaughlin

I was a teenager when I first saw John McLaughlin play live. It was at The Stone on Broadway in San Francisco. The venue is no longer there - I think it's a strip club now, but as a concert venue it was a great place to see a live show. I went with some high school buddies and we got in early, so we sat directly in front of the stage - we so happened to position ourselves to be directly in front of McLaughlin when he and his band came out.

It was in 1985 or '86 and McLaughlin was touring with his 80's incarnation of Mahavishnu (he had dropped the "Orchestra" from the band name by this time). It was also the period where he was playing mostly guitar synthesizer - the Synclavier II - but on that evening he stuck with his Les Paul for the entire show. No complaints about that from me...I even remember at one point, in between songs, someone in the crowd yelled out "Where's your Synclavier???" and someone else responded "He doesn't need it!". McLaughlin just smiled and launched his band into the next tune.

Until this show, I had only heard McLaughlin on vinyl recordings of the original Mahavishnu Orchestra as well as some of his other acoustic albums such as "My Goal's Beyond" and "Friday Night in San Francisco", recorded with Al Di Meola and Paco De Lucia. My guitar teacher turned me on to McLaughlin a few years before this show. I knew that McLaughlin was a respected player and technically very impressive, but I wasn't prepared for what I saw that night at The Stone.

What blew me away was not only the technical precision and speed at which McLaughlin could play, but the overall mastery he seemed to have over the instrument. Since we were sitting literally a few feet in front of him for the entire show I was able to focus on this. The way he positioned his left hand - almost at a right angle to the actual fretboard - made it appear that he was "controlling" the guitar rather than merely playing it. He almost never looked at what he was doing; he played with his head tilted sideways and his eyes closed most of the time while playing the most instricate, technical - and musical - solos that really complemented what the rest of the band were playing. It appeared effortless to him even though what he was playing was beyond description. I felt that evening as though I was watching a real master.

And he had a killing band too - a young Jonas Hellborg on bass, Danny Gottlieb playing drums and Bill Evans on sax. I think the keyboardist was Mitch Foreman but I can't quite remember. It was essentially the lineup he used on his mid-80's Mahavishnu albums ("Mahavishnu" and "Adventures in Radioland").

Since then, I've seen McLaughlin play in various formats: solo acoustic, with a group of Indian musicians, and in a few other electric bands - most recently with Chick Corea and Christan McBride in the Five Peace Band. I have enjoyed everything he's done, no matter the format, and he still impresses beyond belief but more than that - he seems to reinvent himself with each new band he plays in. His style, while unmistakenly "McLaughlin", adapts to the situation and the players around him. To me, this says something about a guitarist that many today consider THE elder statesman of the instrument...he doesn't have to adapt for anyone, but he does so for the sake of the music he's creating.

The original Mahavishnu Orchestra records still blow me away every time I hear them. This was a band I would have loved to see play live, and those I know who have seen them tell me that it was something like a religious experience. I've also enjoyed his other offerings since the Mahavishnu years - during the early 80s he recorded a couple of albums that I enjoyed very much: "Music Spoken Here" and "Belo Horizonte", and he composed and recorded his "Guitar Concerto" with the London Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas). In the 90s he did some amazing work with his "Heart of Things" band. These are just some of my favorites, but they all feature John in various musical formats and he breezes through each effortlessly.

My favorite CD came out in 1996 and is called "The Promise". John plays with a variety of musicians on this one - a different group of players on each track - and the results are amazing. Some standouts are a version of "Django" that he plays with Jeff Beck, "Jazz Jungle" - a 15-minute jam featuring Mike Brecker (worth the cost of the CD all on its own), and a tune called "Thelonius Melodius" with Joey DeFrancesco playing the B3. This CD sort of sums up all of McLaughlin's career, to me. Each group of players playing at the top of their game, and John content not to be the focus but happy to support the others and let them shine through.

I guess he may have learned this from playing with Miles Davis all those years ago; Miles had a way of nurturing new talent and "discovering" many musicians who, today, are considered Jazz greats: Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Tony Williams, Wayne Shorter, John Scofield, McLaughlin...the list goes on. Many of these players went on to nurture and introduce new talent to the jazz world, and we can see that continuing today. Many of the musicians that played with McLaughlin have gone on to respected (if not entirely successful) careers of their own.

And even though John is pushing 70 as of the time of this post, he shows no signs of slowing down. His current band - The 4th Dimension - just released a new CD ("To The One") and the music is inspired as always. While I wish I could have been around for the original Mahavishnu Orchestra tours, I am glad I got turned on to him when I did and was able to catch that show at The Stone. I've seen hundreds of live shows in my lifetime but very few made any lasting impression as this one. Come to think of it, few guitarists have made as much an impression on me as John McLauhglin.

Here's an old clip of John playing "Spain" with Paco de Lucia:


...and here's a short clip of Mahavishnu in the mid-80's. This is around the time I first saw McLaughlin play live:

A Little Shameless Self-Promotion

What better time than the holidays for a little shameless self-promotion? :)


A few years back my jazz quartet recorded a CD of Christmas tunes. The CD is called "Yuletide Jazz" and is available on cdbaby.com, iTunes, and amazon.com. We're quite proud of this recording, and I hope you get the chance to hear and enjoy it! We took some well-known Christmas carols (and a few not-so-well-known ones) and rearranged them in various jazz settings from bop to swing to latin, etc.

The musicians on the recording are:

Alex Bootzin - piano
Steve Cassinelli - bass
Ruben Salcido - sax/flute
Kevin McAuliffe - drums

...as well as some appearances by friends and fellow players.

It also makes a great Christmas present for the jazz fanatic in your life (we all have one, right?)

So take a look for "Yuletide Jazz" by Nucleus. Thus ends the self-promotion for the year. Happy Holidays!

iTunes "Holdouts"?

Because of the long-awaited release of the Beatles' catalog on iTunes last week, I've been reading a lot of articles bemoaning the rest of the iTunes "Holdouts" (artists whose recordings are either not available on iTunes, or who only have a limited selection of their music available through the channel). Among the various artists mentioned are AC/DC, Garth Brooks, Kid Rock, Bob Seger, Tool, Def Leppard, as well as some of the early recordings by Black Sabbath and Aerosmith. Now I will admit to not knowing much (okay, pretty much nothing) about how the music business operates, so most of this is coming from a vantage point of complete ignorance, but I'm finding the discussion mostly focusing on the artists themselves and I wonder if that's misdirected.

The most-cited example I've been reading about lately is AC/DC's Angus Young declaring that their music was never meant to be purchased as individual tracks...that they meant for the entire album to be enjoyed, and that you don't break up an artist's work to sell piecemeal. OK - I can get with some of that statement, if it weren't just a little disingenuous (I remember being able to buy 45's of AC/DC's hits back in the day...isn't that akin to "breaking up an album" and "selling the tracks piecemeal"?) But other artists (prog-rockers Tool, for example) stress that their albums are meant to be listened all the way through, and not as individual tracks. Again, I can get with this statement as well - but iTunes does let you sell albums in their entirety instead of offering single-track downloads...so that argument doesn't really hold water either. But my point is that most of the articles I've read put the focus squarely on the shoulders of the artists themselves, and ask "why are you still holding out"?

But I'm not sure how much of this is up to the artists themselves. For example, the Black Sabbath early catalog (the first eight albums with Ozzy Osbourne on vocals) is not available on iTunes, but the rest of their catalog is. Ditto with Aerosmith - last time I checked, their early output is unavailable in digital format. So, is this selective availability really the artists' own choice? Or does this have to do with the record companies not wanting to sell the (more popular) parts of those catalogs on the (less expensive) iTunes store? Why sell an album online for $9.99 if you can still charge $15 through more traditional outlets? I haven't researched this, but is the iTunes distribution agreement that prohibitive that the record companies don't want to pay Apple's fees? And, does the artist have any say whatsoever about which portions of their discography can be sold digitally? I mean these as actual questions, by the way, and if anyone has any insight, please feel free to leave a comment.

And then we have the strange case of the "here today gone tomorrow" selections like the Frank Zappa catalog. Frank released his albums through his own record label. His catalog was available on iTunes for a short time, and then all of a sudden it was gone. I've subsequently read that Gail Zappa (Frank's widow) pulled the albums off the service because of the poor audio quality afforded by the iTunes compression scheme. OK, fair enough, but really - if that was the case, then why did they ever make it to iTunes in the first place? Did Gail all of a sudden realize after the fact that the sound quality of compressed audio is not 100% on par with a CD? Or did the catalog just not sell very well in the digital world and she realized that the CDs would sell better if left whole? One hates to be cynical...but I really think that, if Frank were alive today, he'd have no qualms about saying "I can make more money by selling CDs through my own label".

So I suspect that we still have iTunes holdouts not necessarily because Angus Young thinks his art should be left completely whole. Unless I'm informed otherwise, I would suggest lobbying the record companies if you want to be able to download your favorite holdout's catalog through iTunes.

The Travesty of "Smooth Jazz"

Back in 1990 I had the pleasure of taking a class at San Francisco State on the history of Jazz. It was taught by Grover Sales who had a unique and personal history with the music, and who taught the subject with more passion than I've seen from a teacher in many years. Mr Sales has since passed away but here's an obit from the San Francisco Chronicle; he was one of a kind and I'll never forget how much I learned in that class. And I still recall the first statement he made on day one of class: "Jazz is NOT popular music". I've come to regard this as the Grover Sales Axiom.


Jazz has never really reached the mass market in the same way as popular music has, so it was probably only natural that some day someone would try to combine the two worlds of popular music and jazz to create a more marketable sub genre of Jazz.


When Miles Davis recorded his landmark "Bitches Brew" album in 1970, he was regarded as the first to meld (or "fuse") the improvisational aspects of Jazz with modern instrumentation and styles that were popular at the time (yes, I know this point is debatable...the CTI label was churning out pop/jazz music around the same time, but Miles took it to another level). Many critics complained that Davis sold out with this new direction he was taking, but that was Miles: he never stuck with the same style of music for very long. He was always pushing, always changing styles. However, when I listen to the "Bitches Brew"-era Miles, I still hear an honesty of a musician unafraid to push boundaries and challenge a listener's expectations. And I can still hear the improvisation, freedom, and interplay with his band that (to me) are the hallmarks of what Jazz is really all about. Miles never sold out; he was always charting new directions until the day he died.

The trend that Miles started was continued by other popular "fusion" bands in the early 1970s, most notably by supergroups like the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return to Forever. The essentials of Jazz remained firmly in place on these recordings and these groups did much to expand on the groundwork that Miles had laid. However, like anything good that sticks around for a while, someone will come along and try to exploit it even further and end up creating a monster. It's arguable as to when exactly the genre of "smooth jazz" was created, but some of the earliest groups to capitalize on the sound (such as Spyro Gyra and The Jeff Lorber Fusion) started around the mid-1970s.

The difference to me between these bands and the other Fusion giants of the previous years was several-fold: the improvising was toned down, the music was unadventurous and not challenging to the listener, and the commercialism was turned way, way up. Probably the most egregious examples of the "new fusion" were guys like Chuck Mangione, Earl Klugh, and even (as much as I hate to say it) George Benson - a brilliant jazz guitarist who ventured into the "crossover" territory for years before making his money and then finally returning to his jazz roots.

The smooth jazz trend continued into the early 1980s with the formation of GRP Records, a label started by Dave Grusin and which featured primarily (though not exclusively) smooth jazz artists such as Lee Ritenour and Larry Carlton, turning smooth jazz into a multi-million dollar enterprise. But nobody is entitled to wear the crown of smooth jazz as much as one Kenny Gorelick, formerly a member of the Jeff Lorber Fusion band - later to be known as Kenny G.

Kenny G is every musician's favorite target to criticize - not because of his success (I wouldn't begrudge anyone who has "made it" in the music field...more power to them), but because he continuously promotes the same banal, mind-numbing, dumbed-down and most sterile music since I once heard a muzak version of "Play That Funky Music" in a supermarket. And Kenny G has indeed made millions off this genre. His albums have sold many millions, many times over. Compare this with the pioneers of jazz who came decades before him: Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk...even going back further to Bix Beiderbecke, Jelly Roll Morton, James P Johnson, Louis Armstrong...I am willing to bet that all of these masters combined could not outsell the tripe that Kenny G puts out year after year. Pat Metheny (one of my top 10 favorite guitarists) posted a now-famous diatribe about Kenny G, after KG cut a track of himself playing over a Louis Armstrong record...which Metheny basically considered a sacrilege.

Nobody understands this market better than Kenny himself. There is definitely an audience for background instrumental pop that doesn't challenge or offend, doesn't force the listener to really listen, and I don't have a problem with anyone who purchases this dreck - only don't call it Jazz because it's not Jazz. Smooth jazz, as a genre, to me means: boring chord changes (usually a variant of a II-V-I sequence repeated ad nauseum), boring and repetitive solos that don't tell a story or go anywhere, and no interplay among the musicians. In fact, a lot of the examples of this genre sound like sampled rhythms; I wonder if some of them even use real players. The biggest issue for me is that this is what passes today as "jazz". It's not Jazz...just apply the Grover Sales Axiom: Kenny G is popular and he plays "smooth jazz". The Axiom says "Jazz is NOT popular music". I have therefore proven that smooth jazz is not really "jazz" :)

Having said all of the above, I will admit that there are some seriously good players in the smooth jazz arena. I've seen a few of them live, playing in mostly non-"smooth" situations, and some of them can hold their own with any type of music. Lee Ritenour is one of them. Pianist David Benoit is another. I just think it's unfortunate that the music-buying public probably wouldn't buy their stuff if they played more challenging music, so they continue to record the stuff that will sell. Occasionally, however, they will venture into some real Jazz territory; these albums may not sell as much but it's nice for a change.

So call it what it is: instrumental pop, improvisational R&B, instrumental-lite...please just don't call it Jazz. Go back and listen to some of the old masters mentioned above and you'll be able to hear the difference. And again, if you're really into Kenny G and I've offended, my apologies. This blog entry was just meant to inform and I hope I've done that.

A friend and fellow musician, Tony Frye, recently posted on his Facebook wall that 80% of the "Jazz" section of his local used record store was taken up by Kenny G and the Manhattan Transfer. That's a sad commentary, and his post is what inspired me to write this blog entry (thanks, Tony!). By the way, Tony keeps an excellent music blog here - check it out!

A Morning at the Opera

The fifth season of the Metropolitan Opera's HD transmissions started today, with Richard Wagner's "Das Rheingold" broadcast live to 1500 movie theaters in 46 participating countries. If you have never been to an opera but are interested in trying it out, I absolutely recommend this as a way to experience it for the first time. Depending on where you live, there's a good chance that your local theater multiplex is a participant in the program. And for about $24, the price can't be beat. Here's a link to the Metropolitan Opera HD website which lists all the upcoming performances and more information.

Because of the live simulcast, the start time for these broadcasts here on the West Coast is usually 10am - earlier if the opera is especially long (an upcoming simulcast of "Die Walkure", scheduled to last 5 1/2 hours, will start at 9am). This season, the Met is simulcasting 12 of their operas during this season; up from 9 last year. The numbers speak to the success of this venture: 2.4 million tickets were purchased during last years' simulcasts of 9 operas while a typical attendance figure for a season at the Met is around 800,000.

The technology is amazing when you consider this is a live simulcast going out all over the world. The picture and sound quality is incredible, and yes there are subtitles so you can follow the stories. Instead of just fixing a camera on the stage, you are brought up close to each singer; this lets you see things you can't normally catch in a live performance. It's really the best seat in the house as far as I'm concerned.

I wonder how (or if) the advent of these simulcasts has affected actual attendance at the Met, or at any other opera house in the States. For myself (and I've written before about my increasing dislike of attending live performances these days), I know that I'm more apt to attend a Met simulcast (and spend $24 per ticket) than to trudge up to the War Memorial and pay upwards of $100 for a decent seat, not including parking, etc. I know that this is not helpful financially for my local Opera Company but they receive some support from me in other ways. (By the way, the SF Opera has done a few "opera in the movie theater" functions as well, but they are not live and they don't have the reach of the Met in terms of making their offerings available at your local multiplex).

Do I really want to drop $1000 on one ticket to see the Ring Cycle next summer at the War Memorial, or wait for the Met to show them at my local theater for a tenth of the price? Or wil the SF Opera film their Ring cycle and make them available on blu-ray so we can enjoy them at home, at our leisure? I'm willing to bet that the Met will do this after the season is up; the production today was one worth seeing again for sure.

I remember reading about a time over 20 years ago now when supertitles were first introduced to the Met as well as to SF Opera and other regional houses; patrons threatened to pull their subscriptions, conductors refused to conduct, and this was perceived to be the end of opera as they knew it. Instead, it opened up the art form for a whole new audience who couldn't follow opera before this. I suspect the same will happen as a result of these live simulcasts, and hopefully in-house attendance will increase not only for the Met but for many local theater companies. I think this is probably the best thing to come along for opera since the introduction of supertitles...it's certainly a game-changer.



Again, if opera seems totally alien to you, give the Met simulcasts a try - you might be surprised at how much you like opera after all!