"Music is my rampart, and my only one," wrote Edna St Vincent Millay. Yes, this is an exaggeration; having written that, I must add that I'm up on that rampart as well.
Those on the ramparts are almost never musically exclusive; they don't make statements such as only classical music is worthwhile, or that popular music isn't worth listening to, etc. They let music happen to them; they let their inner aesthetics, faster than thought and free of all snobbery, decide what sounds move them, be they from birds, Bach, Björk or Mahalia Jackson. Music lovers are also well aware that while the queen of the arts at her best must always be entertaining, she is also able to be much more than merely pleasing; sometimes what's beautiful hurts. A mirror (with speakers) of life herself, she intensifies any emotion she chooses.
I will now discuss two beautiful hurts, two non-classical classics. Both are grooves as defined by Daniel J. Levitin in his wonderful book, This Is Your Brain on Music, from which I excerpt here:
Groove is that quality that moves the song forward, the musical equivalent to a book that you can't put down. When a song has a good groove, it invites us into a sonic world that we don't want to leave. Although we are aware of the pulse of the song, external time seems to stand still, and we don't want the song to ever end. Groove has to do with a particular performer or particular performance, not with what is written on paper.
page 170
Well said!
First Groove: Ne Me Quitte Pas, written and performed by Jacques Brel, 1959
This is one of the most emotionally intense performances of a standard ever recorded, a unique combination of a great song, great singing--and great acting. It's a beautiful hurt.
I'm not sure of the date of this recording, which was presumably made during a television appearance. The song was written in 1959, but this video was certainly made after that. Brel rerecorded some of his past hits in 1972, with Ne Me Quitte Pas as the title of the album. If this video dates from around 1972, Brel would have been 43 at the time. He does indeed look about that age in this video, but the film does not have the quality one would expect from the seventies. Perhaps it dates from the mid-sixties, when Brel was in his mid-thirties. If that's the case, he looks older.
First, let us concentrate on the visual element. Brel obviously demanded that the camera film him at close range; it almost seems that a mirror, a few inches from his face, is doing the recording. A consummate actor, Brel wanted to intensify the emotion by performing in this way. It is safe to say that many aging actors who have obtained fame would be too vain to allow themselves to be filmed at such close range without any make-up.
At first you see a handsome face; it soon becomes almost hideous. One sees the sweat--it even looks as if his nose is running. You can't help but notice the huge, misshapen teeth; at times you can imagine a skull with a macabre grin underlying his face. The man appears to be very vulnerable, even desperate.
Now let's look and listen. As we do listen, the emotional impact--carefully planned--intensifies. How he shakes his head in despair at the end, followed by the syncopated phrase, "ne me quitte pas!" We see and hear a heart-rending portrait of a man coming apart.
Brel wrote the song after his mistress threw him out of the house. He has transformed the incident into art, however, transcending it completely. You don't have to know anything about Brel's biography to appreciate this song; in any case, the song is probably only based on an event in his life. (That all art has biographical elements is a well known nostrum.)
We see and hear a man begging for love and begging for his life. He comes across as so needy that we can well imagine why his lover might not take him back. You would expect that an intense portrait of such vulnerability would be over-the-top and perhaps even risible, but Brel pulls it off brilliantly.
The words, written by Brel, are quite effective. (Warning: avoid the English translation by Rod McKuen--it is atrocious. It sure helps to understand the French!) My translation of a portion of the song is as follows: "Let me be the shadow of your shadow, the shadow of your hand, the shadow of your dog." In his desperation, the narrator has lost all self-respect; in Brel's performance, the effect is harrowing.
Brel gives the impression of a man losing control. It appears spontaneous, but don't let that fool you--every gesture, every phrase is deliberate and has been perfected by much practice, I am certain of that.
The timing is breathtaking! One couldn't imagine anyone syncopating the phrase, "ne me quitte pas," to greater emotional effect. Sometimes he swallows the "pas;" sometimes he accelerates the phrase--it is sung differently each time, always in a way to lay bare the increasing desperation of the narrator. At the end Brel seems to be at the point of tears--the consummate artist, however, is smiling, unseen. That final shake of his head is unforgettable--That something so exquisitely planned appears so exquisitely spontaneous is the mark of a great artist.
The performance is so intense that it is sometimes difficult to watch and to listen. A commentator on the video says it best: "Cette chanson me fait mal au coeur. J'essaie de ne pas écouter pour ne pas souffrir." ("This song wounds my heart. I try not to listen so I don't have to suffer.") A perfect description of a beautiful hurt!
Second Groove: My Funny Valentine, Rodgers/Hart, Performed by Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Vaughan's performance of My Funny Valentine is no less intense than Brel's, thus making it one of the most riveting performances of all time; its intensity, however, is of a different order. Brel was a singer, actor and composer; Sarah Vaughan was a great singer, unplain and unsimple. If you close your eyes during Brel's performance, you miss a great deal; if you do the same with Vaughan's, you might have an even richer experience, since just about everything is in the voice.
First a few words about the song. The music was written by Richard Rodgers, the lyrics by Lorenz Hart; it premiered as part of a musical, Babes In Arms, which ran on Broadway for 289 performances in 1937. To my knowledge, it hasn't been revived much since then, or perhaps not even at all. The lyrics by Hart, a much less sentimental and a much more ironical lyricist than Hammerstein, are first-rate. In the play, the song is addressed to a man named Valentine LaMar, hence the word-play of the title. The words poignantly point to one of the great mysteries of love: finding a person priceless whom most would consider hardly worth a second look. Val is neither intelligent nor good-looking, and the narrator of the song knows it. She loves him deeply, however, and doesn't want him to change: Don't change a hair for me/not if you care for me/ Stay little Valentine, stay/ Each day is Valentine's Day. Falling in love with someone whom most would consider to be unlovable is not the norm, true, but it does happen, and Hart's unsentimental treatment of this sentiment is noble and uplifting, without ever being trite. Rodgers plays down the irony and intensifies the emotion, a very good path for a composer to take. Rodgers was a brilliant melodist; admittedly, however, some of his songs seem dated today. Even the lovely "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" and "You'll Never Walk Alone" come across to the modern listener as being somewhat preachy in tone. Other songs by Rodgers are more versatile and have become jazz standards. "My Favorite Things" is one such piece; "My Funny Valentine" is another. The latter has been recorded hundreds of times; in my opinion, Vaughan's recording is the best one by far. (Ella Fitzgerald's is wonderful in its own right, but it is much less intense. The timbre of her voice had few peers; her personality, however, was different from Vaughan's. What Fitzgerald accomplished came close to an upbeat type of perfection; compared to Vaughan, however, her emotional as well as scalar range was limited.)
Sarah Vaughan, as one critic pointed out and with whom I am in complete agreement, had one of the most amazing voices of the twentieth century. She had a range that spanned more than three octaves, which is extraordinary in itself. If you believe as I do, however, that what is most important is emotional subtlety and intensity, technical ability is not enough. Vaughan indeed gave us more than enough; she is one of those rare performers whose expressive abilities were even greater than her amazing technical prowess. As this recording demonstrates, Vaughn's musicality and ability to convey emotion are second to none.
Vaughan had two nicknames, "Sassy" and "The Divine One." "Sassy" had more to do with her personality when she was young, a quality that certainly comes across in some of her recordings. By the time of this recording, among the last she ever made, most of the sassiness had been knocked out of her voice by age and adversity. We are left with "The Divine One" at her most radiant. The recording on YouTube is dated 1990; since it has some Japanese subtitles, it was most likely recorded during her tour of Japan that she began in late 1989. She was sixty-five at the time and in failing health--though you wouldn't surmise that from listening to her voice. She was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1989 and died on April 3, 1990, a week after her sixty-sixth birthday.
Vaughan knew she had little time left at the time of this performance, and it shows. This is her swan song, and the swan has brought me to close tears on several occasions. Her performance illustrates one of the few glories of old age: an increase in tenderness and poignancy and a decrease in vanity, combined with a visceral understanding about how fleeting and how precious life is. (As one Blues musician said: if you're growing older and don't know the Blues yet--you will.)
Vaughan couldn't have made this recording at any other time in her life. And even at this time in her life, not every performance was a perfect groove like this one. There is another version of this song from her final tour that is great, but not as great.
She made other recordings of this song, one from early in her career. At that time she followed the arrangement, this time the pianist followed her, allowing her to improvise freely. In her old age the voice, as one would expect, is lower, but its full range is intact. Listen to how she uses her full voice and then leaps to a pianissimo head tone on "day" on one occasion and on "(Valen)-tine" on another, both toward the end of the performance--it is unforgettable. Her phrasing throughout is impeccable. Indeed, everything is impeccable in this recording, which makes it a groove.
As she did in her youth, she sang beautifully to the very end; singing about love in an old body that is falling apart, however, gives hr singing a new dimension. The way I hear it, the character of the song,"Valentine," with all his foibles, has been transformed in this performance into a personification of life with all its sorrows and difficulties. Despite its defects, Vaughan seems to be revealing to us, life is still very much worthy of passionate devotion. In apostrophizing life in this way, Vaughan raises the song into a realm of universality that deeply touches us all. It is Old Age singing, being at its very best.
Like saying good-bye to a loved one forever, it is a beautiful hurt.
Thank you for reading this article; it is my hope that you will follow the entire series. As always, I invite you to join as a follower of this blog; your comments, whether positive or critical, are most welcome.
*
Note: This is the first of a series of articles entitled, "Music Is Music!" To follow are analyses of a Gospel standard, of a jazz standard and of a lied.
Those on the ramparts are almost never musically exclusive; they don't make statements such as only classical music is worthwhile, or that popular music isn't worth listening to, etc. They let music happen to them; they let their inner aesthetics, faster than thought and free of all snobbery, decide what sounds move them, be they from birds, Bach, Björk or Mahalia Jackson. Music lovers are also well aware that while the queen of the arts at her best must always be entertaining, she is also able to be much more than merely pleasing; sometimes what's beautiful hurts. A mirror (with speakers) of life herself, she intensifies any emotion she chooses.
I will now discuss two beautiful hurts, two non-classical classics. Both are grooves as defined by Daniel J. Levitin in his wonderful book, This Is Your Brain on Music, from which I excerpt here:
Groove is that quality that moves the song forward, the musical equivalent to a book that you can't put down. When a song has a good groove, it invites us into a sonic world that we don't want to leave. Although we are aware of the pulse of the song, external time seems to stand still, and we don't want the song to ever end. Groove has to do with a particular performer or particular performance, not with what is written on paper.
page 170
Well said!
First Groove: Ne Me Quitte Pas, written and performed by Jacques Brel, 1959
This is one of the most emotionally intense performances of a standard ever recorded, a unique combination of a great song, great singing--and great acting. It's a beautiful hurt.
I'm not sure of the date of this recording, which was presumably made during a television appearance. The song was written in 1959, but this video was certainly made after that. Brel rerecorded some of his past hits in 1972, with Ne Me Quitte Pas as the title of the album. If this video dates from around 1972, Brel would have been 43 at the time. He does indeed look about that age in this video, but the film does not have the quality one would expect from the seventies. Perhaps it dates from the mid-sixties, when Brel was in his mid-thirties. If that's the case, he looks older.
First, let us concentrate on the visual element. Brel obviously demanded that the camera film him at close range; it almost seems that a mirror, a few inches from his face, is doing the recording. A consummate actor, Brel wanted to intensify the emotion by performing in this way. It is safe to say that many aging actors who have obtained fame would be too vain to allow themselves to be filmed at such close range without any make-up.
At first you see a handsome face; it soon becomes almost hideous. One sees the sweat--it even looks as if his nose is running. You can't help but notice the huge, misshapen teeth; at times you can imagine a skull with a macabre grin underlying his face. The man appears to be very vulnerable, even desperate.
Now let's look and listen. As we do listen, the emotional impact--carefully planned--intensifies. How he shakes his head in despair at the end, followed by the syncopated phrase, "ne me quitte pas!" We see and hear a heart-rending portrait of a man coming apart.
Brel wrote the song after his mistress threw him out of the house. He has transformed the incident into art, however, transcending it completely. You don't have to know anything about Brel's biography to appreciate this song; in any case, the song is probably only based on an event in his life. (That all art has biographical elements is a well known nostrum.)
We see and hear a man begging for love and begging for his life. He comes across as so needy that we can well imagine why his lover might not take him back. You would expect that an intense portrait of such vulnerability would be over-the-top and perhaps even risible, but Brel pulls it off brilliantly.
The words, written by Brel, are quite effective. (Warning: avoid the English translation by Rod McKuen--it is atrocious. It sure helps to understand the French!) My translation of a portion of the song is as follows: "Let me be the shadow of your shadow, the shadow of your hand, the shadow of your dog." In his desperation, the narrator has lost all self-respect; in Brel's performance, the effect is harrowing.
Brel gives the impression of a man losing control. It appears spontaneous, but don't let that fool you--every gesture, every phrase is deliberate and has been perfected by much practice, I am certain of that.
The timing is breathtaking! One couldn't imagine anyone syncopating the phrase, "ne me quitte pas," to greater emotional effect. Sometimes he swallows the "pas;" sometimes he accelerates the phrase--it is sung differently each time, always in a way to lay bare the increasing desperation of the narrator. At the end Brel seems to be at the point of tears--the consummate artist, however, is smiling, unseen. That final shake of his head is unforgettable--That something so exquisitely planned appears so exquisitely spontaneous is the mark of a great artist.
The performance is so intense that it is sometimes difficult to watch and to listen. A commentator on the video says it best: "Cette chanson me fait mal au coeur. J'essaie de ne pas écouter pour ne pas souffrir." ("This song wounds my heart. I try not to listen so I don't have to suffer.") A perfect description of a beautiful hurt!
Second Groove: My Funny Valentine, Rodgers/Hart, Performed by Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Vaughan's performance of My Funny Valentine is no less intense than Brel's, thus making it one of the most riveting performances of all time; its intensity, however, is of a different order. Brel was a singer, actor and composer; Sarah Vaughan was a great singer, unplain and unsimple. If you close your eyes during Brel's performance, you miss a great deal; if you do the same with Vaughan's, you might have an even richer experience, since just about everything is in the voice.
First a few words about the song. The music was written by Richard Rodgers, the lyrics by Lorenz Hart; it premiered as part of a musical, Babes In Arms, which ran on Broadway for 289 performances in 1937. To my knowledge, it hasn't been revived much since then, or perhaps not even at all. The lyrics by Hart, a much less sentimental and a much more ironical lyricist than Hammerstein, are first-rate. In the play, the song is addressed to a man named Valentine LaMar, hence the word-play of the title. The words poignantly point to one of the great mysteries of love: finding a person priceless whom most would consider hardly worth a second look. Val is neither intelligent nor good-looking, and the narrator of the song knows it. She loves him deeply, however, and doesn't want him to change: Don't change a hair for me/not if you care for me/ Stay little Valentine, stay/ Each day is Valentine's Day. Falling in love with someone whom most would consider to be unlovable is not the norm, true, but it does happen, and Hart's unsentimental treatment of this sentiment is noble and uplifting, without ever being trite. Rodgers plays down the irony and intensifies the emotion, a very good path for a composer to take. Rodgers was a brilliant melodist; admittedly, however, some of his songs seem dated today. Even the lovely "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" and "You'll Never Walk Alone" come across to the modern listener as being somewhat preachy in tone. Other songs by Rodgers are more versatile and have become jazz standards. "My Favorite Things" is one such piece; "My Funny Valentine" is another. The latter has been recorded hundreds of times; in my opinion, Vaughan's recording is the best one by far. (Ella Fitzgerald's is wonderful in its own right, but it is much less intense. The timbre of her voice had few peers; her personality, however, was different from Vaughan's. What Fitzgerald accomplished came close to an upbeat type of perfection; compared to Vaughan, however, her emotional as well as scalar range was limited.)
Sarah Vaughan, as one critic pointed out and with whom I am in complete agreement, had one of the most amazing voices of the twentieth century. She had a range that spanned more than three octaves, which is extraordinary in itself. If you believe as I do, however, that what is most important is emotional subtlety and intensity, technical ability is not enough. Vaughan indeed gave us more than enough; she is one of those rare performers whose expressive abilities were even greater than her amazing technical prowess. As this recording demonstrates, Vaughn's musicality and ability to convey emotion are second to none.
Vaughan had two nicknames, "Sassy" and "The Divine One." "Sassy" had more to do with her personality when she was young, a quality that certainly comes across in some of her recordings. By the time of this recording, among the last she ever made, most of the sassiness had been knocked out of her voice by age and adversity. We are left with "The Divine One" at her most radiant. The recording on YouTube is dated 1990; since it has some Japanese subtitles, it was most likely recorded during her tour of Japan that she began in late 1989. She was sixty-five at the time and in failing health--though you wouldn't surmise that from listening to her voice. She was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1989 and died on April 3, 1990, a week after her sixty-sixth birthday.
Vaughan knew she had little time left at the time of this performance, and it shows. This is her swan song, and the swan has brought me to close tears on several occasions. Her performance illustrates one of the few glories of old age: an increase in tenderness and poignancy and a decrease in vanity, combined with a visceral understanding about how fleeting and how precious life is. (As one Blues musician said: if you're growing older and don't know the Blues yet--you will.)
Vaughan couldn't have made this recording at any other time in her life. And even at this time in her life, not every performance was a perfect groove like this one. There is another version of this song from her final tour that is great, but not as great.
She made other recordings of this song, one from early in her career. At that time she followed the arrangement, this time the pianist followed her, allowing her to improvise freely. In her old age the voice, as one would expect, is lower, but its full range is intact. Listen to how she uses her full voice and then leaps to a pianissimo head tone on "day" on one occasion and on "(Valen)-tine" on another, both toward the end of the performance--it is unforgettable. Her phrasing throughout is impeccable. Indeed, everything is impeccable in this recording, which makes it a groove.
As she did in her youth, she sang beautifully to the very end; singing about love in an old body that is falling apart, however, gives hr singing a new dimension. The way I hear it, the character of the song,"Valentine," with all his foibles, has been transformed in this performance into a personification of life with all its sorrows and difficulties. Despite its defects, Vaughan seems to be revealing to us, life is still very much worthy of passionate devotion. In apostrophizing life in this way, Vaughan raises the song into a realm of universality that deeply touches us all. It is Old Age singing, being at its very best.
Like saying good-bye to a loved one forever, it is a beautiful hurt.
Thank you for reading this article; it is my hope that you will follow the entire series. As always, I invite you to join as a follower of this blog; your comments, whether positive or critical, are most welcome.
*
Note: This is the first of a series of articles entitled, "Music Is Music!" To follow are analyses of a Gospel standard, of a jazz standard and of a lied.
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