This respite from that wretched “polar vortex” gag has me dreaming of spring already, so of course The Gertrudes popped into my head. This is such a chipper, happy song. It’s also a great driving song, and, as your Yankette got home from a super fun road trip late last night, it’s vaguely apropos. And, because I got home from a super fun road trip late last night, this is a very short post, so I apologize I’m not more verbose, Tune-Up fans. I promise I’ll be extra wordy on Tuesday. Happy Monday!
happy
Salubrious Saturday: “Walking in the Sun,” Fink
StandardYou ever have those moments where you feel like you can look at yourself from a removed vantage point? I had one of those moments not too long ago. I was sitting in my office at work, and, all of a sudden and out of absolutely nowhere, I was able to look behind me (in my mind, of course) and see the path I’d walked on to get to where I was in that exact moment – doing what I was doing, wearing what I was wearing, all of it. It was the strangest and most wonderful feeling. I could see the places I had made an active decision, the places where an outside force had cleared a few feet of the path ahead, the places where I’d stumbled and made a slight course correction. There were It made my life today seem both inevitable and accidental at the same time, in that everyone is a product of their own decisions but no one exists in a vacuum. It was a beautiful moment.
That is what this song reminds me of.
Funk Friday: “Hold On, I’m Comin’,” Sam Moore & Dave Prater
StandardStax Records is an absolute legend, so of course this recording of this song is, according to me, the very best one out there. No doubt these guys have amazing voices, but layer them on top of some serious horns and a tight groove, and you get something on a whole other plane. This has been one of those weeks when I have really leaned on my friends and man oh man am I grateful. Happy Friday, Tune-Up fans!
Worldly Wednesday: “The Man in the Desert,” Yoko Kanno
StandardSomething wakes up, stirs, and evolves in this piece. It starts so simply but builds to a massive and complicated climax before resolving back to the six-note lilt with which it began. It’s so hopeful throughout. It feels like running your fingers over an angora blanket. (Now is probably a good time to mention that your Yankette has mild synesthesia, which is when the senses get a little jumbled and, in this case, sounds have colors and textures.) The beginning especially sounds like a convergence of Aaron Copland and Steve Reich, both of whom I love. Yoko Kanno is a modern Japanese composer from Sendai, Japan.
She is mostly known for her soundtracks to anime films and video games. This is my favorite piece of hers. I have been looking everywhere for the words. Intrepid readers, if any of you can find them, I would really appreciate it.
Termagant Tuesday: “Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gave To Me,” Sidney Bechet
StandardBoy oh boy, this song really cooks. The drums are just a hair ahead of the other instruments, the piano is ever so slightly behind, and the resulting mismatch in tempo gives the song the sexiest syncopation this side of a liberal Joplin cover.
And the harmonies when the horns come back in at 2:51. I mean come on. Just stop it. And when Bechet lets it rip at 3:48. Listen to how the piano settles down to match the drums’ tempo to allow Bechet to get loose. This is such a gloriously American sound, a fusion of Tin Pan Alley and a New Orleans jazz funeral, with a dash of Django Reinhardt.
If you need me I’ll be in a smoky jazz club in Paris with a French 75, my man on my arm, and a whole evening of hedonism ahead.
Modernism Monday: “Giuliano’s Tune, Something, Eleanor Day’s #2,” The Duhks
StandardI feel a strong urge to post something unabashedly cheerful today to kick off the week, and The Duhks certainly deliver. The Duhks are from Winnipeg (that’s above North Dakota, for my geography-challenegd friends), but the music they make really sounds like it’s from Newfoundland, or Scotland for that matter. This song makes me want to participate in some type of organized group dancing that heavily features the swinging of one’s partner round and round. If any of you have ever been to a ceilidh (Scottish country dancing) and know the dance “Strip the Willow,” this would be absolutely perfect. Slàinte!
Throwback Thursday: “Maestoso,” from Symphony No. 3, Camille Saint-Saens
StandardIt’s the deepest, darkest part of winter. It’s cold. Spring feels like it will never come. Life is difficult in general, and sometimes really whacks one in the face. What do we do when this concatenation of suck happens? I will tell you what we do. We square our shoulders, count our blessings, tend to our loved ones, and attack the task at hand with even more zeal than before. Thank the good and gracious Whomever for music, upon which we can rely to be an indefatigable crutch. This movement from Camille Saint-Saens’s organ concerto is one of the most joyously bracing pieces ever written, and is tailor-made for those moments when you need a pep talk, and/or a sonic kick in the pants. It has it all: the alarm-clock beginning, the triumphant horns, the gorgeous melody, and the sympathetic minor key interludes that assure you that others have seen the same kind of trying times you’re experiencing, and not only lived through them, but, ultimately, thrived. It’s pieces like this that inspired me to write this blog in the first place so that I could share them.
“Don’t turn away. Keep your gaze on the bandaged place. That’s where the light enters you.”
– Rumi
Modernism Monday: “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” John Rosamond Johnson, with words by James Weldon Johnson
StandardToday we mark the life of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., so I thought it appropriate to focus on this piece. “Lift Every Voice and Sing” has come to be known as the Black National Anthem. The words come from a poem written by James Weldon Johnson in 1899, a pioneer in the civil rights movement and an early leader in the NAACP. Johnson wrote the poem as an introduction to Booker T. Washington at an event celebrating Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. Johnson’s brother, John, set the poem to music in 1905. The words are monumentally powerful and the melody is gorgeous, which is why I include two versions here. The first one, above, is sung by Leontyne Price (music starts at 3:32) and adheres to the written melody and time signature. The second one, below, is sung by Ray Charles, and, well, doesn’t adhere to much, but is just so joyous.
Today is a good day to remember that our great Republic is an ever-evolving project which it is our duty, to each other and to those who came before us, to continually perfect. In the words of Dr. King, “We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.”
Lyrics at the bottom, as per usual.
—
Lift every voice and sing, till earth and Heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise, high as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.
Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed.
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered
Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,
Thou Who hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou Who hast by Thy might, led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee.
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee.
Shadowed beneath Thy hand, may we forever stand,
True to our God, true to our native land.
Sacred Sunday: “Go Down, Moses,” Louis Armstrong
StandardA bit of a curveball today. It’s not the type of weekend for a serious choral work. It’s the type of weekend for a zippy, jazzy spiritual piece, and I for one have no qualms about calling anything Louis Armstrong did “sacred.” And you gotta love it when it gets all New Orleans at 2:42. So groovy. Happy Sunday!
Salubrious Saturday: “Mo Ghruagach Dhonn,” Julie Fowlis
StandardThis is such a lovely song. Julie Fowlis is from the tippity-top of Scotland, a place called North Uist in the outer Hebrides (look for it on Google Images – it’s just gorgeous). Her music always makes me happy and homesick at the same time, and as it’s cold and windy in D.C. today, it puts me a Scottish frame of mind. A good day for bundling up and venturing outside with a hot beverage and some good tunes.
—
Hi ho ro, mo ghruagach dhonn,
S ann ort fhèin a dhfhàs an loinn:
Dhfhàg siud acaid na mo chom,
An gaol cho trom s a ghabh mi ort.
Fhuair mi do litir Dimàirt,
Dhinnseadh dhòmhsa mar a bha:
Gu robh thu a tighinn gun dàil
A-mach air bàta Ghlaschu.
Nuair a leugh mi mar a bha,
Ghabh mi sìos am Brumalà:
Chunnaic mi a tighinn am bàt
S an t-àilleagan, an ainnir, innt.
Nuair a shìn mi mach mo làmh,
Thionndaidh thu le fiamh a ghàir
S labhair thu facal no dhà
Dhfhàg iomadh tràth gun chadal mi.
S ann ort fhèin tha ghruag a fàs –
Cha dubh s cha ruadh is cha bhàn,
Ach mar an t-òr as àille snuadh,
Gu buidhe, dualach, camalagach.
Dhèanainn sgrìobhadh dhut le peannt,
Dhèanainn treabhadh dhut le crann,
Dhèanainn sgiobair dhut air luing,
Air nighean donn nam meall-shùilean.
Meòir is grinn thu air an t-snàth
No cur peannt air pàipear bàn,
Ach ma chaidh thu null thar sàil
DhAstràilia, mo bheannachd leat.
Cha bhi mi tuilleadh fo leòn,
Glacaidh mi tè ùr air spòig –
Solamh bu ghlice bha beò,
Bha aige mòran leannanan
Hi ho ro, my brown-haired lass,
whose beauty becomes more beguiling.
The deep love I have for you
has left me sorely wounded.
Your letter arrived on Tuesday
Telling of what was to be.
It told that your ship would arrive
in Glasgow without delay.
When I read this,
I immediately headed for the Broomielaw.
I saw the ship carrying the jewel,
the maiden, approach.
When I held out my hand
you turned with a slight smile and
uttered a couple of words
which left me sleepless many nights
You have the lovliest hair,
neither black, nor red nor fair,
but the colour of the most beautiful gold,
yellow, braided and curled.
I would write for you with a pen.
I would cultivate for you with a plough.
I would captain a ship for you,
brown haired lass of the deceiving eyes.
You are skilled at working wool
and at writing on blank paper.
But if you have gone overseas, to Australia,
goodbye to you.
I will no longer be in despair.
Ill grab a new one by the hand.
Solomon, the wisest man who lived,
had many sweethearts.
The Daily Tune-Up 