Ich ruf' zu Dir, Herr Jesu Christ

Still staying at films... the main aim of this blog was always to show something new and something which takes real effect on us, an effect which can't be described, to know it - you have to live it. That's the most fantastic thing in music, that incomprehensibleness.

One of my favourite films is Solaris directed by Andrei Tarkovsky in 1972, based on the novel Solaris written by the Polish science-fiction writer Stanisław Lem in 1961. I both like the novel and the film, they are both beautiful. They say it's science-fiction, and yes, but just because that sort of environment (another planet, space base). The real topics are human emotions and thoughts. The film is a milestone in film art, and with the book it tells me a lot of things about this world, and a lot of thoughts which - as I mentioned it - can't be described. About the future, the smallness of mankind and the huge aimless which is floating around us and which we cannot understand, just always suffer from it.

The main music theme of this film is BWV 639 Ich ruf' zu Dir, Herr Jesu Christ by Johann Sebastian Bach. BWV is a categorization of all the pieces by Bach (BWV: Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis). I have a strange feeling about this music. Sometimes I feel, that a song is both about hope and hopeless. That's irreal, but maybe possible - as I said some time ago, music can contain everything at the same time.

Performance 1 (organ, Aarnoud de Groen):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMnrjQK2Z8Y

Performance 2 (piano, Horowitz):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMlgyCb6vfg

Performance 3 (cello, Maurice Gendron):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApN31QRqgIk

Solaris trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Tob56MebI8

Theme from Shaft

The long and exciting quest of Two and a half men has been lastly resolved: when Charlie and Alan are joined by the big guy from the neighbourhood, the pizza guy and Herb, and get drunk a little bit, they sing a song which my father knew that he knew it and had it on cd at home, but which cd... we couldn't figure it out on that lazy, warm, nothing-to-do summer night. But the day before yesterday we saw again that episode and (after some research) it turned out that the song is the main theme of the movie Shaft and is on the following album: Isaac Hayes - Shaft. Isaac Hayes is a big name in soul music, he was the first afro-american Oscar prize winner (for the best original song). I have one album by him, but didn't know this cool song yet. Enjoy!

Shaft live from 1973:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2cHkMwzOiM

Shaft live from 1997:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM3mfMHGnXI

Watch how the guys perform it in the comedy Two and a half men:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYc92kRokz0

Shaft movie trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiCB2isZcRM

Who is the man, who would risk his neck for his brother man?

- Shaft!

Jimmy Smith - Christmas cookin'

There are some albums which we listen to almost only on one day in a year, for example on Christmas day. Christmas cookin' - a nice black-mood title for a sweet, loose album. I use this word in the following way: the songs are played in the possible maximum loosy way. They just float, keep us calm and hunt for joy - yes, we can feel that this music is a result of some kind of happines and feeling good-mood. This happiness is paired with the silence and deepening of Christmas. Just to mention the most famous ones: Jingle bells, Silent night, Greensleeves. Silent night, like other songs on this album got a serious, celebrational frame, and after the start the songs bravely change to joy in one moment - provided by Jimmy's singing melodies.

Greensleeves is a traditional English song which can be found even in the 16th century literature memories. There's a legend about that it was written by Henry VIII for his lover and future queen consort Anne Boleyn. Boleyn allegedly rejected King Henry's attempts to seduce her and this rejection may be referred to in the song when the writer's love "cast me off discourteously". There is, however, no available evidence that King Henry did in fact compose "Greensleeves", which is probably Elizabethan in origin and based on an Italian style of composition that did not reach England until after his death. You can hear it on the following albums, too: John Coltrane - Africa/brass, Kenny Burrell - Guitar forms.

Baby, it's cold outside is an American pop duet composed by Frank Loesser. In the vocal version the female voice in the song is called "The Mouse" and the male "The Wolf." The lyrics consist of his attempts to convince her to stay with him at the end of a date; her indecisive protests reveal that although she feels obligated to go home, she is tempted to stay, partially because, as the title suggests, "It's cold outside.".

Read about the song God rest ye merry gentlemen:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_rest_you_merry,_gentlemen

Jingle bells:

Prepare for a long night

It was precisely a little bit more than two years ago: I was surfing on the internet when I saw a little nice feature on www.nasa.gov, the NASA Calendar. Interesting things on the sky, anniversaries of old historical events, etc... and, on the 22th of December, I saw the following subtitle: Prepare for a long night. I was totally amazed. Like a child, it perfectly fit in my season- or everyday-rituals, which sometimes are celebrated only in my soul, and doesn't have any physical effect. I think everyone has this sort of of rituals. The longest night... isn't it fantastic? When anything can happen, when man sinks into his deepest thoughts, in that deepest night, which doesn't want to be over.

The thought didn't leave me, and, with my friend we played songs just for fun that time, besides our "real" music activities. We called it Jules & Cakkos project, I won't describe it, why. As you can see on the myspace page, we only made four songs which are gathered on an ep, called Virginia creeper. We can't sing, but sing in Prepare for a long night, and Madár úr. An interesting thing: no one likes the first, but everybody the second one. That's all, this project has been over for a long time. The low "plays" numbers are because we uploaded the songs again not a long time ago. I hope you'll enjoy it. And don't forget about your own rituals in life.

Our myspace page:

www.mayspace.com/julescakkos

You can download the ep here:
http://www.divshare.com/download/8628493-117

Pet Shop Boys - Behaviour

In life, people sometimes have totally unnecessary days when they feel themselves aimless, lonely, or anything else. Today was something like this for me, and maybe this made me to pick off an old favourite from the cd shelf. The forever effective one-word-titled Behaviour is PSB's most "alone" and silent album.

Now there's a milestone in my life and I have so much free time... so much free time suddenly, and I don't really know or feel what to do. "Shall I rewrite, or revise my October Symphony?" "She said we were never feeling bored" "I never knew time pass so slow" These are quotations from the album, and there's one more important, "Dress in white", says an old birthday party invitation card - this is how the album starts with the beautiful song Being boring, which PSB says about: "The song is about growing up - the ideals that you have when you're young and how they turn out." The song didn't really changed over the years, as you can see in the videos (I remember singing it with my friend to strangers on the Sziget festival, but PSB didn't give concert here that year).

After the melancholic but somehow hopeful intro, I hear This must be the place I waited years to leave's lamenting and calmly celebrational melodies, and the lower part of the far sky quite fast turns from grey to faint yellow. Then I reach To face the truth, which is similar to Only the wind - these two songs provides the most intimate parts of the album. But - PSB remains PSB - there are bigger hits on the album, too, like How can you expect to be taken seriously? touched by some rock, and So hard. Ending with the purely honest and - I think - well-known feelings for everyone, Jealousy, which gives a celebrational close to the album.

I have this cd in Further listening version which means double cd, the original album + an extra disc containing longer or other versions of songs and songs which were made around that time, but were previously unreleased. Aimless days... Behaviour. And a reminder: She was never bored because she was never boring.

Being boring:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtjFsFXU9YU

Being boring (live):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Akd4yn1r4Dc

So hard:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q5_ggo1ZfQ

Jealousy (live):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW2EejnHcZQ

Pharoah Sanders - Thembi

Popular jazz may not be the topic where you have seen Pharoah Sanders' name, he made music in other "spheres": the spheres of Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, and others.

Thembi is an album with many colours and desires to show things from this world, things which are hidden or things simply from nature - expressing them in its pure reality and sometimes in a wild, almost animalistic way. As we can read on the inner cover:

This album is dedicated to, and named after, Thembi Sanders. Thembi is an abbreviation of Nomathemba, which is an African Xhosa name, meaning hope, faith and love. Thembi is all hope, faith and love to Pharoah Sanders.

The album starts with the soft-sounding, pulsating Astral traveling, a piece by Lonnie Liston Smith (he also has an album titled Astral traveling, but now in this blog you can read a review about the album Renaissance). As Sanders's melody comes in, we can feel its ancient meaning, and some kind of piece in it. Its ambient, echoing atmosphere suddenly breaks when the second track opens: Red, black & green. Now it's something which is hard to write about. The completely free, vivid and harassed starting can be felt as the forces of the universe may struggle with each other, or all of the little movements of it become quickly loud. These hoarse brass sounds and huge drums later change: the chaos declines and something evolves out from it. It comes from behind it, under it or just one little melody gets the main role: the world shows some sort of system, piece and harmony. The music becomes a flowing journey amongst all of the emotions in the universe, amongst three colours which maybe describe everything: red, black & green. This song in music has an important meaning for me. As we go on, we mee the lighter Thembi with its cool rhythm and Sanders' fine melody again. But the album still keeps more secrets: Love, a bass solo by Cecil McBee, which is also a notable point on this album. The melody is slightly painful and lamenting, but rather woolgathering - I love when in a jazz song the other musicians get silent and one gets the main role and play a solo: then he uses his instrument in other way and shows its other abilities, makes experiments with it. Cecil McBee makes interesting slides and sometimes he let the bass' strings twang. At the end he changes to bow and the music leads through the last two tracks which make a nice frame on this album, it starts with a similar melody to Astral traveling. As we reach the end, everything becomes really vivid and animalistic, we can hear noises similar to nature's own noises which increase the character of this special atmosphere.

Thembi (live):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgBVWx_1TKs

Astral traveling:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmL1da8VhiE

Red, black & green (part):

PRO/CREATION (for Pharoah Sanders)

Music, as language,

looking in to the world

with the spirit of a people

identifies itself more precisely

than label. And is there, always,

coming from every place

Pharoah has been - Africa, Asia,

& our long memory in America.

He, traveler in sound/spirit,

is direction firm, strong, firmly

connected to root. Expression

past any word. Energies of sound,

old as ear of any god known or not,

now redistributed here to move us

with Love, Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer.

Continuities, yes,

the song, memorial and now.

It is from here

Pharoah takes our ear

breaking the silences of our spirit & walls.

Remember slave bells?

And desire? Red, black & Green;

THEMBI, the woman, home.

(by Keorapetse Kgositsile from the original liner notes)

The ECM Season

I should have written this post at least a month ago, but I don't have too much time nowadays. It will change soon.

So the ECM Season... what's this? Just that sort of things which lives in my mind, and I think about it as "something which is coming", "something which is worth to wait". As the weather turns cold and dark, the nights lengthen, people get in a mood when they would like to hear music which is more serious, I mean it stands on a higher and more complex musical quality, or has a contemplative side. Autumn comes and soon passes by to give its way to the long, long and dark winter. Sometimes we feel it wouldn't like to be over, it wants to stay here forever. But autumn, the beautiful season has another kind of special moods, which I told you a few times earlier in this blog. This special feeling takes great effect on you but as autumn goes ahead, the weather gets colder and the colours less colourful, the contemplative side and passing-by mood appears immediately. It's something which we have felt in our minds for a very long time, and maybe got stronger by poems, films, and childhood memories.

So this time has a special kind of music, too. The German label ECM can perfectly fit these desires with its special styled covers and great, fantastic, sometimes strange music. Let me show you a few notable albums.

• John Abercrombie & Ralph Towner - Sargasso Sea
• Art ensemble of Chicago - Full force
• Chick Corea - Return to forever
• Eberhard Weber Colours - Little movements
• Oregon - Oregon
• Colin Walcott, Don Cherry, Nana Vasconcelos - CoDoNa
• Rainer Brüninghaus - Freigeweht
• Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen - Those who were
  

Later you will see reviews of these albums here.
Visit the record's website: http://www.ecmrecords.com/, where you can download their new catalogue, too.