Module 6

In the initial run of his course, I spoke about it being a shame that I wasn't more of a Carlos Santana fan and that I didn't own any of his albums.  I regret that I've not corrected that issue in the past six months.  Perhaps iTunes and I need to have a little talk with my credit card this weekend.  It's true that the music I'm familiar with, Oye Como Va especially, are tunes I really like.  I know from college pep band that it's a great tune, and it was always one of my favs when we played it at Wisconsin, and certainly when I’m flipping through the vast array of options on my XM Radio while driving, a Santana chart all but guarantees that I’ll stop on that station and listen.

Santana's Wikipedia article credits him with fusing Rock and Latin American rhythms and using blues lines in his guitar playing.  While Wikipedia is, perhaps, not the most academic resource, this statement about his music certainly shows in Oye Como Va.  I can hear grooves and lines that have their basis in the blues, he has extended guitar solos that are very evocative of blues charts we listened to back in Module 4.  I can hear the connections to big band (and jazz itself harkens back to African grooves) within the Afro-Latino styles, and the added Latin percussion completes the flavor.  Having just completed World Musics at UF, it's easy to hear these additions and respect the authenticity of the charts.  It’s also not surprising to me that versions of Oye Como Va appear in the books of many public school jazz bands, and it's probably time that I made sure we had it in our books with the East Tophatters too.  

Wayne's World was easily one of my favorite Saturday Night Live sketches back when I was in junior high and high school, but it made it's leap to the big screen when I was a freshman.  At the time, my knowledge of hip rock'n'roll was quite limited.  I wasn’t one of the “cool kids," and all my folks listened to, which I've discussed at length in both runnings of this class, was their own vernacular music.  This movie was my introduction a Queen other than just the annoyingly ubiquitous sports anthem We Will Rock You, as well as the music of Led Zeppelin.  I loved the scene in the music store with the “No Stairway to Heaven” signs in the store as Wayne takes the Fender Stratocaster, “No Stairway.  Denied.”  Between Wayne’s World and the No Quarter collaboration, I really came to like a lot of Zeppelin’s charts, but I never saw the appeal of Stairway.  I suspect it’s because I’m not a guitar player, so that “famous riff” at the start never resonates with me in a personal way.  Listening to this chart now, with much more mature ears, the tune is brilliant.  A chorale at the beginning?  Then a prolonged rock section?  As a concert band guy, this blows me away.  It’s not the rhapsodic hodge-podge that is Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, it’s a Bach Little Prelude and Fugue, a Clifton Williams piece (Dedicatory Overture comes to mind), Carter’s Overture for Winds, McBeth’s Chant and Jubilo.  It follows format that really works for me with the maturity I now possess in my musicianship. 

Are Talking Heads the “gateway drug” to George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic or is it the other way around?  I only know Talking Heads for Burning Down the House, which was influenced by Clinton and his group, and they date back to doo-wop.  The question makes sense in terms of this listening, despite our Talking Heads chart for the week being prior to Burning Down the House, as Talking Heads claim to have gotten the idea from a Parliament-Funkadelic show.  I think I need to familiarize myself with that group too.  With the advancement in electronic technology, our Talking Heads chart has an early 80’s sound to it, despite its 1977 premiere, yet the structure is very much rock with roots all the way back to the blues. 

The bulk of the remainder of this week’s listening are charts that I’m familiar with from either the Saturday night “Super Gold” that I've referred to many times or pep band tunes.