Off the top of my head, I can think of three cases in which a composer puts out his version of a song, only to have it quickly co-opted by someone else. I’m not talking about Pat Boone’s version of Fats Domino’s ‘Blueberry Hill’ or Bobby Darin’s version of Tim Hardin’s ‘If I Were a Carpenter’. Those are embarrassing covers. I’m also not talking about Rod Stewart’s cover of Tom Waits’ ‘Downtown Train’. There are kazillions of examples of respectable singers making respectable, respectful covers of worthwhile songs.
I’m talking about the rare case where an original version is eclipsed by a cover, where the subsequent version discovered qualities the author himself didn’t grasp.
Jimi Hendrix (1942-70) kidnapped ‘All Along the Watchtower’ from Bob Dylan. Well, most people think so, including Mr Zimmerman himself. Yours truly is, of course, in the minority dissenting opinion. Dylan, on how he felt when first hearing Hendrix’s version of ‘All Along the Watchtower’: “It overwhelmed me, really. He had such a talent, he could find things inside a song and vigorously develop them. He found things that other people wouldn’t think of finding in there. He probably improved upon it by the spaces he was using. I took license with the song from his version, actually, and continue to do it to this day.”
Clapton (l), Duane Allman (r)
But then Jimi had the tables turned on him with the song ‘Little Wing’, from “Axis: Bold as Love” (1967). Although the album captivated the collective imagination of the entire Freak Nation, ‘Little Wing’ itself went largely unnoticed. In 1970, Eric Clapton recorded it with Derek & the Dominoes (on the same day he recorded ‘Layla’). Hendrix died 9 days later, so we’ll never get to hear his opinion of Clapton’s version. But it was Slowhand’s version that catapaulted the song into the status it now holds, both as a rite-of-passage for wannabe guitarists and as an inspiration for other explorations.
The song itself is a masterpiece of enigma. Here’s Hendrix’ own very elucidating description: “Well, that was one song on there we did a lot of sound on, you know. We put the guitar through the Leslie speaker of an organ, and it sounds like jelly bread, you know….It’s based on a very, very simple American Indian style, you know, very simple. I got the idea like, when we was in Monterey, and I just happened to…just looking at everything around. So I figured that I take everything I see around and put it maybe in the form of a girl maybe, something like that, you know, and call it ‘Little Wing’, in other words, just fly away. Everybody really flying and they’s really in a nice mood, like the police and everybody was really great out there. So I just took all these things an put them in one very, very small little matchbox, you know, into a girl and then do it. It was very simple, you know. That’s one of the very few ones I like.”
Well, okay, Jimi, thanks for that. Jelly bread???
Guitarist (l), Glockenspeil (r)
Hendrix’ recorded version showcases his (right-handed) guitar (flipped over to be played upside down by left-handed Jimi) being run through a Leslie speaker, usually used with Hammond organs, together with a distortion effect giving it a unique tone. Mitch Mitchell’s explosive drums cut the dream with speed; Noel Redding’s bass serves as both a floor and a ceiling, without which they’d probably just float away into the sky; a pinch of glockenspiel provides the celestial. Two and a half minutes. It was one of Hendrix’ performance favorites. I found one collection of 14 bootlegged live performances. Here’s one for you, from the Royal Albert Hall, London, England, February 24, 1969.
Derek & the Dominos’ version is indeed inspired, from the majesty of the very opening guitar riff. Listen for example to this performance by the Allman Brothers, guest-starring Clapton, 2009. The vocals are fine, Clapton’s guitar is fine, Derek Trucks’ solo is really exciting. But it isn’t in the same stratosphere with the Carl Radle (b)/Jim Gordon (d)/Bobby Whitlock (p) rhythm section, not to mention the second lead guitar of Duane Allman. Or the production of Tom Dowd, who is credited by all involved to have been the key moving force in making the legendary “Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs”.
Dowd’s production is genius, pure genius. I don’t need to walk you through ‘Little Wing’ or ‘Layla’ or ‘I Looked Away’ or ‘Bell Bottom Blues’, you’ve listened to them as often as I have. The expansive tapestry of the two guitars, the organ, the drums, the two voices and the bass (that’s all there is), sounding richer and certainly more complex than Phil Spector’s 27 kettle drums on ‘Da Doo Run Run’. You don’t need me to tell you how thrilling and uplifting this music is.
It was D&tD’s version that has inspired the many and varied covers of ‘Little Wing’. There are oodles of virtuoso guitar homages to Clapton/Allman by the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Steve Vai. There are stripped-down melodic versions by the Irish band The Corrs and Tuck & Patti, a knock-out husband (guitar) and wife (vocals) team who perform it as the second half of a medley with another song from “Axis: Bold as Love”, ‘Castles Made of Sand’. If you don’t know Tuck & Patti, give them a listen. They’re not as well-known as they should be, but they are infallibly musically tasteful and technically impressive.
Sting (l), Gil Evans (r)
One of the great arrangers of the 20th century, Gil Evans (here’s a posting I wrote about his work with Miles Davis) was planning a collaboration with Hendrix before the latter died. The pairing is surprising, seemingly disparate beyond fusion. Evans later recorded with his orchestra a CD of Hendrix music, including a version of ‘Little Wing’. It’s so embarrassingly bad, and I have so much respect for Gil Evans, that I won’t even give you the link to it. But Evans did help out Sting with his version of the song, which has gained a well-deserved stature in its own right. It’s an impressive amalgam of other treatments, incorporating both the melodic and personal side of the song as well as the complex, energetic, symphonic orchestration.
So what are we left with here? I think I usually know what subject I’m addressing–a song, an artist, a song as representing an artist, or an artist as expressing himself in a song. But here it’s an unusual aggregate of a song, various artists, a range of approaches. In the end, I don’t go to Hendrix for songs, but for his disassembly of world order. But he has inspired this one jelly bread of a song, haunting, the rare meeting of psychedelia and reality, a most electric and eclectic homage to the ephemeral bliss of the carnal, Derek & The Dominos’ rapturous recording of ‘Little Wing’.
Well she’s walking through the clouds
With a circus mind that’s running round
Butterflies and zebras
And moonbeams and fairy tales
That’s all she ever thinks about
Riding with the wind.
When I’m sad, she comes to me
With a thousand smiles, she gives to me free
It’s alright she says it’s alright
Take anything you want from me,
Anything.
Thanks this week to my friend MK, who has so generously and virulently argued with me over the last couple of weeks about the sanctity and inviolability of classical music. She believes in all her heart and soul that it’s legitimate to cover Bruce Springsteen but not Bob Schumann. You know, I pretty much agree with her. Just not in this case.
A while back I undertook to take a walk through Miles Davis’ music of the 1950s. Today’s SoTW is the third in a series of four. We’ll be taking a look at the cut ‘Concierto de Aranjuez‘ from the album “Sketches of Spain” by Miles Davis, arranged and conducted by Gil Evans. Thom Jurek, a critic whose effusiveness pales even mine called this cut “…one of the most memorable works to come from popular culture in the 20th century…To listen to it in the 21st century is still a spine-tingling experience, as one encounters a multitude of timbres, tonalities, and harmonic structures seldom found in the music called jazz.” Whoo, them’s some high-falutin’ words. Sure sounds like this is worth listening to, right?
So let’s get some terminology in order here. A concerto is a large-scale orchestral composition of three movements featuring a solo instrument. Aranjuez is a small town 50 km south of Madrid. Joaquin Rodrigo (1901-1999) was a blind Spanish composer whose ‘Concierto de Aranjuez for Guitar‘ is one of the most popular orchestral works of that century. The piece is widely believed to have been inspired by the atrocities of Guernica, but after decades of silence Mrs Rodrigo said that it reflected both their honeymoon and the composer’s devastation at her miscarriage. Miles Davis (1926-1991) was a spoiled junkie trumpeter of limited technique who played as an 18-year old in the quintet of Charlie Parker, alto sax luminary of bebop. He came under the influence of visionary of the Cool big-band arranger Gil Evans (1912-1988). Together, they created in 1949 the stunning “Birth of the Cool” sessions (see SoTW 35). Miles descended into heroin, came out to make a series of seminal genteel albums for Prestige (see SoTW 41). In 1957 he was at the top of his game, signed to a lucrative new contract with Columbia – fame, fortune, acclaim, boxing gloves (he was a serious pugilist), Ferraris, and lots of beautiful women in the pockets of his elegantly tailored Italian suits. Columbia suggested that Davis work with an arranger. He turned to Evans, and the resulting collaborations, most notably “Miles Ahead” (1957, in this stunning clip), “Porgy and Bess” (1958), and “Sketches of Spain” (1960) (as well as Evans’ “Out of the Cool” from 1960, very much in the same vein) are indeed among the greatest achievements of modern jazz.
All four albums sound more Evans than Miles. Not to diminish Miles’ contribution, but he’s there more as a collaborative artist than as a soloist. Nowhere on the three collaborations do you really sit up and notice Miles’ playing. You’re immersed in the orchestration, the gestalt of the sound. So much so that “Out of the Cool”, even without Miles’ participation, is part and parcel of this group.
One more issue we need to clarify here, orchestration vs bandization. Rodrigo writes for the ‘classical’ concert idiom, i.e., the symphony orchestra, which is a mix of up to 80-90 woodwinds, brass, percussion, and predominantly strings. Evans’ instrument is a small concert band —about 20 musicians sans strings. The former is by nature softer, the latter typically harder–the difference between catgut on wood and a Bronx cheer amplified on brass.
The four albums from the Evans/Davis group always pair up in my ears: “Miles Ahead” and “Out of the Cool” together, brassy, brash and bright, upbeat, energetic, gleeful, glowing. Music to Grin To. But “Porgy and Bess” and “Sketches of Spain” are soft, floating, contemplative, stunning intricate tapestries of Evans’ trademark nimbus-like concert bands and brass/wind ensembles.
What Gil Evans did in this piece was to re-cast the second movement (‘Adagio‘, i.e., slow and graceful) of Rodrigo’s concerto. From what I can figure out, he uses almost the entire original notation but re-orchestrates it, the brass and woodwinds replacing the strings. But it’s so much more than that. He rebuilds the harmonic texture of the original. It’s the same but oh, so different.
Let’s dissect one small part, the very beginning of the two pieces.
The very first section begins with a statement of the main melodic theme a number of times in different harmonic contexts, both minor and major. (As far as I can figure out the piece is written in B minor, but I wouldn’t bet the family farm on that or any of the technical gobbledygook I’m throwing out below.)
In the original, it begins with a guitar strumming the chords, the English horn playing the melody, strings providing sustained chords based on the (minor) tonic. The sentence is then repeated, with the guitar playing the melody. Then up to the (major) dominant, the guitar against the sustained strings with a bass providing a steady pulse on the first beat of each measure, just to keep things in order.
Gil Evans’ version is so similar, but so wholly other. We’re way, way beyond the coherent world of beat-on-the-one. From the get-go, the backdrop is a very high tinkling piano and some indefinable chirping instrument supercharged with a manic, jittery clattery castanet that allows scarce respite throughout the entire piece. The melody is stated not by one instrument but by two, Miles on his muted flugelhorn (much like a trumpet, but with a softer, gentler tone) and another brass below him.
The sustained chords accompanying them are not the stately, classical minors of the original, but a restless, hungry body of harmony menacingly shadowing the melody. There’s a tuba (I think), then later Paul Chambers’ bass, providing a tense, lurking line independent of the rhythm of the melody, searching, probing, a fierceness in its eyes. Of course in a normal listen to the piece you don’t consciously hear these underlying lines. But they have a profound psychological effect, one of menace, impending conflict, dark clouds on the horizon and a still heaviness in the air.
The backdrop accompaniment of Evans’ brass and woodwinds are utilizing the same chord progression, as far as these untrained ears can discern, but with a rich retinue of bizarre embellishments. Not embellishments, enrichments. Heaven is in the details.
That’s the heart of the difference to my ears. In Rodrigo’s original, the sustained chords providing the fabric of the piece are orderly minors, clear, recognizable, calming. In Evans, this backdrop is full of internal tensions, oblique jazz notes creating a complex, inscrutable tapestry contrasted upon which the melodic line couched. The juxtaposition of the clear, beautiful melody creates–for me–a rich, evocative dialogue which doesn’t exist in the original. That’s why I prefer “Sketches in Spain” to the original.
But MK, thanks a lot for arguing with me. It sure did help me clarify things for myself.
Thanks this week to my friend MK, who has so generously and virulently argued with me over the last couple of weeks about the sanctity and inviolability of classical music. She believes in all her heart and soul that it’s legitimate to cover Bruce Springsteen but not Bob Schumann. You know, I pretty much agree with her. Just not in this case.
A while back I undertook to take a walk through Miles Davis’ music of the 1950s. Today’s SoTW is the third in a series of four. We’ll be taking a look at the cut ‘Concierto de Aranjuez’ (Part One, Part Two) from the album “Sketches of Spain” by Miles Davis, arranged and conducted by Gil Evans. Thom Jurek, a critic whose effusiveness pales even mine called this cut “…one of the most memorable works to come from popular culture in the 20th century…To listen to it in the 21st century is still a spine-tingling experience, as one encounters a multitude of timbres, tonalities, and harmonic structures seldom found in the music called jazz.” Whoo, them’s some high-falutin’ words. Sure sounds like this is worth listening to, right?
So let’s get some terminology in order here. A concerto is a large-scale orchestral composition of three movements featuring a solo instrument. Aranjuez is a small town 50 km south of Madrid. Joaquin Rodrigo (1901-1999) was a blind Spanish composer whose ‘Concierto de Aranjuez for Guitar‘ is one of the most popular orchestral works of that century. The piece is widely believed to have been inspired by the atrocities of Guernica, but after decades of silence Mrs Rodrigo said that it reflected both their honeymoon and the composer’s devastation at her miscarriage. Miles Davis (1926-1991) was a spoiled junkie trumpeter of limited technique who played as an 18-year old in the quintet of Charlie Parker, alto sax luminary of bebop. He came under the influence of visionary of the Cool big-band arranger Gil Evans (1912-1988). Together, they created in 1949 the stunning “Birth of the Cool” sessions (see SoTW 35). Miles descended into heroin, came out to make a series of seminal genteel albums for Prestige (see SoTW 41). In 1957 he was at the top of his game, signed to a lucrative new contract with Columbia – fame, fortune, acclaim, boxing gloves (he was a serious pugilist), Ferraris, and lots of beautiful women in the pockets of his elegantly tailored Italian suits. Columbia suggested that Davis work with an arranger. He turned to Evans, and the resulting collaborations (Gil Evans talking about Miles and conducting him), most notably “Miles Ahead” (1957, in this stunning clip), “Porgy and Bess” (1958), and “Sketches of Spain” (1960) (as well as Evans’ “Out of the Cool” from 1960, very much in the same vein) are indeed among the greatest achievements of modern jazz.
All four albums sound more Evans than Miles. Not to diminish Miles’ contribution, but it’s more as a collaborative artist than as a soloist. Nowhere on the three collaborations do you really sit up and notice Miles’ playing. You’re immersed in the orchestration, the gestalt of the sound. So much so that “Out of the Cool”, even without Miles’ participation, is part and parcel of this group.
One more issue we need to clarify here, orchestration vs bandization. Rodrigo writes for the ‘classical’ concert idiom, i.e., the symphony orchestra, which is a mix of up to 80-90 woodwinds, brass, percussion, and predominantly strings. Evans’ instrument is a small concert band —about 20 musicians sans strings. The former is by nature softer, the latter typically harder–the difference between catgut on wood and a Bronx cheer amplified on brass.
The four albums from the Evans/Davis group always pair up in my ears: “Miles Ahead” and “Out of the Cool” together, brassy, brash and bright, upbeat, energetic, gleeful, glowing. Music to Grin To. But “Porgy and Bess” and “Sketches of Spain” are soft, floating, contemplative, stunning intricate tapestries of Evans’ trademark nimbus-like concert bands and brass/wind ensembles.
What Gil Evans did in this piece was to re-cast the second movement (‘Adagio’, i.e., slow and graceful) of Rodrigo’s concerto. From what I can figure out, he uses almost the entire original notation but re-orchestrates it, the brass and woodwinds replacing the strings. But it’s so much more than that. He rebuilds the harmonic texture of the original. It’s the same but oh, so different.
Let’s dissect one small part, the very beginning of the two pieces.
The very first section begins with a statement of the main melodic theme a number of times in different harmonic contexts, both minor and major. (As far as I can figure out the piece is written in B minor, but I wouldn’t bet the family farm on that or any of the technical gobbledygook I’m throwing out below.)
In the original, it begins with a guitar strumming the chords, the English horn playing the melody, strings providing sustained chords based on the (minor) tonic. The sentence is then repeated, with the guitar playing the melody. Then up to the (major) dominant, the guitar against the sustained strings with a bass providing a steady pulse on the first beat of each measure, just to keep things in order.
Gil Evans’ version is so similar, but so wholly other. We’re way, way beyond the coherent world of beat-on-the-one. From the get-go, the backdrop is a very high tinkling piano and some indefinable chirping instrument supercharged with a manic, jittery clattery castanet that allows scarce respite throughout the entire piece. The melody is stated not by one instrument but by two, Miles on his muted flugelhorn (much like a trumpet, but with a softer, gentler tone) and another brass below him.
The sustained chords accompanying them are not the stately, classical minors of the original, but a restless, hungry body of harmony menacingly shadowing the melody. There’s a tuba (I think), then later Paul Chambers’ bass, providing a tense, lurking line independent of the rhythm of the melody, searching, probing, a fierceness in its eyes. Of course in a normal listen to the piece you don’t consciously hear these underlying lines. But they have a profound psychological effect, one of menace, impending conflict, dark clouds on the horizon and a still heaviness in the air.
The backdrop accompaniment of Evans’ brass and woodwinds are utilizing the same chord progression, as far as these untrained ears can discern, but with a rich retinue of bizarre embellishments. Not embellishments, enrichments. Heaven is in the details.
That’s the heart of the difference to my ears. In Rodrigo’s original, the sustained chords providing the fabric of the piece are orderly minors, clear, recognizable, calming. In Evans, this backdrop is full of internal tensions, oblique jazz notes creating a complex, inscrutable tapestry contrasted upon which the melodic line couched. The juxtaposition of the clear, beautiful melody creates–for me–a rich, evocative dialogue which doesn’t exist in the original. That’s why I prefer “Sketches in Spain” to the original.
But MK, thanks a lot for arguing with me. It sure did help me clarify things for myself.
Off the top of my head, I can think of three cases in which a composer puts out his version of a song, only to have it quickly co-opted by someone else. I’m not talking about Pat Boone’s version of Fats Domino’s ‘Blueberry Hill’ or Bobby Darin’s version of Tim Hardin’s ‘If I Were a Carpenter’. Those are embarrassing covers. I’m also not talking about Rod Stewart’s cover of Tom Waits’ ‘Downtown Train’. There are kazillions of examples of respectable singers making respectable, respectful covers of worthwhile songs.
The song itself is a masterpiece of enigma. Here’s Hendrix’ own very elucidating description: “Well, that was one song on there we did a lot of sound on, you know. We put the guitar through the Leslie speaker of an organ, and it sounds like jelly bread, you know….It’s based on a very, very simple American Indian style, you know, very simple. I got the idea like, when we was in Monterey, and I just happened to…just looking at everything around. So I figured that I take everything I see around and put it maybe in the form of a girl maybe, something like that, you know, and call it ‘Little Wing’, in other words, just fly away. Everybody really flying and they’s really in a nice mood, like the police and everybody was really great out there. So I just took all these things an put them in one very, very small little matchbox, you know, into a girl and then do it. It was very simple, you know. That’s one of the very few ones I like.” 
Derek & the Dominos’ version is indeed inspired, from the majesty of the very opening guitar riff. Listen for example to this performance by the Allman Brothers, guest-starring Clapton, 2009. The vocals are fine, Clapton’s guitar is fine, Derek Trucks’ solo is really exciting. But it isn’t in the same stratosphere with the Carl Radle (b)/Jim Gordon (d)/Bobby Whitlock (p) rhythm section, not to mention the second lead guitar of Duane Allman. Or the production of Tom Dowd, who is credited by all involved to have been the key moving force in making the legendary “Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs”.
So what are we left with here? I think I usually know what subject I’m addressing–a song, an artist, a song as representing an artist, or an artist as expressing himself in a song. But here it’s an unusual aggregate of a song, various artists, a range of approaches. In the end, I don’t go to Hendrix for songs, but for his disassembly of world order. But he has inspired this one jelly bread of a song, haunting, the rare meeting of psychedelia and reality, a most electric and eclectic homage to the ephemeral bliss of the carnal, Derek & The Dominos’ rapturous recording of ‘Little Wing’.
