Music and Lyrics

I meant to write about this pair of new albums from electric bass master Victor Wooten a couple of months ago. This past week, I failed to go see him perform live in Seattle, and I'm disappointed about that. Procrastination mixed with being too busy. In the end, I didn't really want to leave the family for the evening when this overseas trip got added to the mix.

Anyway, Victor concurrently released a pair of albums in September 2012. They form a really interesting concept, by releasing much of the same music in two forms on complementary albums.

Sword and Stone is a mostly instrumental release. Its complement is Words and Tones, which presents mostly the same songs with vocals. Victor points out in interviews that the two titles are formed from the same letters, rearranged.

As an aside, I hadn't seen any mention of this, but when writing this article I realized that Victor is known for playing a Yin/Yang style bass (such as shown at right), and that this pair of albums really does represent the Yin and Yang of instrumental and vocal performance.  Very cool.

At the time of the release, I wasn't willing to pay for two albums at once from the same artist. I test listened to the tracks of both, and ended up instead buying half of each album. For the most part I bought the same songs in both instrumental and vocal forms.

My music friends know me as the guy who really doesn't listen to vocals. I'm pretty satisfied with instrumental music, but I have to admit that it gets a bit boring, and vocals add something significant to the experience. I still don't necessarily listen to the meaning of the words, though.

After listening to both sets of music, my conclusion is that I quite like both. Frankly the singers on some of the Words and Tones album are barely good enough, but I found they grew on me. After all, most of the great 70s rock that I loved was sung by less than perfect voices.

Anyway, Victor's playing is excellent, as always, and the music is pretty great. My one peeve is that there is an extended bass solo in the middle of one of the best tracks on the album Keep It Low. In my view it's the sort of thing you can get away with live, but it detracts from the studio album.

Check it out. Feel the groove...

Recent Music Industry Reads

[I suspect I should post each review separately, but frankly the point of commenting publicly is to potentially introduce others to some things I've read/listened to, etc. that they might not have heard of.  Separating them might just cause people to miss something great. That is, if anyone reads any of this stuff...]

The Music Lesson -- by Victor L. Wooten

If you love music and you've never heard of The Music Lesson, I really recommend having a look/listen.  I read this one last year via Audio Book (from Audible.com).  [I've been listening to quite a few books recently, as I find it a great way to consume a book while doing other things (particularly driving).]  More than any other audio book I've read, this one truly deserves to be listened to...

I was aware of Victor Wooten's great bass playing before I read this, but I wouldn't have called myself a "fan". The book is a kind of dream/fantasy story which is essentially autobiographical [if no doubt fictionized], about a struggling bass player.  Victor narrates the story himself in the audio book, which is great.  And there are quite a few guest voices through the story, which keep it fresh and interesting.

Of all the books I've read in the past year, this one has really stuck with me.  I'm not sure if it has really changed my outlook on music or practicing my instrument, but maybe.  At least it's made me think a bit more about many aspects of music.

The story is centred around a set of 10 music lessons, most of which I thought were insightful and illuminating.  The one I took away the most was an early one in the book: "Never sacrifice the groove to hit the right note."  I'd say that lesson alone is worth the cost of the book, and the soundtrack within the story is great... much better than a book on paper.

The Godfather of Soul - An Autobiography -- by James Brown

I'm a fan of funk, and always thought James Brown was a pretty interesting character.  I hadn't owned any of his music until a couple of years ago when I bought a compilation overview of his career.  I took a couple of good friends and my now-wife to see Brown when he played his last show in Vancouver in January, 2006.  By that point, Brown was getting a little feeble, physically, though he still showed a whole lot of energy.  The show was an eye-opener to me, though, because it was so "entertainment" oriented... not just music, but a true Event, reminding me of P.T. Barnum.  And the band was so hot!

The book is a good read.  Easy to get through; filled with interesting stories, people and places.  For me the biggest eye opener was how focused he was on business success.  From ensuring he owned the rights to his songs to buying radio stations so he had an assured marketing channel... this guy was really on the ball from a business perspective.  To some extent, certain parts feel a bit boastful, but really I can't argue with the fact that James Brown was a very significant success, in an era when "coloured" entertainers had a hard time of it. Oh, yeah, and the other surprise to me was that Brown was ethnically a lot of things other than negro... I always looked at him as an African American, and I think that's how he was seen by the world.

Life - an Autobiography -- by Keith Richards

OK, I'm only a bit over half way through Life right now, but it's worth adding at this point.  I think there are lots of reviews of this out there... my main points are few.  I'm listening to this as an audio book, and what's fascinating about it in this medium is that it's read by Johnny Depp, in a darned good impersonation of Keith Richards.

I'm not particularly a Rolling Stones fan, but I certainly appreciate a lot of really great tunes they put out over the years, particularly in the late sixties and early 70s.  I wasn't particularly aware of Keith's role in the band, other than being a solid rythm guitar player... the book makes it clear that he and Mick Jagger are the guys who wrote the songs and led the band.  It also is quite interesting in digging into the methods they used to write songs, often in rapid succession.

The book is also something of an eye opener regarding the use of drugs, particularly heroin, and some interesting insights into that world and how Keith managed to survive it.  It's not a pretty story, and is definitely not something to play on the car stereo while the kids are in the vehicle.  Overall, I'm quite enjoying it, and am listening to it most of the time that I'm driving these days.

Jazz -- by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns

Jazz is another book I read in audio format.  It's a relatively short (9 hours listening) overview of the history of jazz music, from its roots in blues and ragtime and creole music styles through to modern times.  It really focuses a lot on the early days, and kind of tapers off once arriving in the 1970s, with little attention to the modern jazz scene.

Overall I found it a worthwhile primer, since I haven't studied jazz history in any significant way.  It's probably of limited value to those with a strong jazz history.  It wasn't really great, though.  Three stars out of five seems about the right rating based on my own experience.

Rock On -- by Dan Kennedy

Actually reading a paper book in this particular case, and again I'm not quite finished with it.  But this one is easy to summarize... it's the story of a fellow who starts his career in the music business working for a record label at the beginning of the 2000s, just in time for the industry to start to self destruct.

Rock On is a quick, fun read that pokes fun at office life and how self-important the record industry executives saw themselves.  It's a book that can't end well, but is quite fascinating on the way down.  Not a deep read, just some light fun and an interesting look inside the record industry.

I have one or two more books about music lined up and not yet started, including Room Full of Mirrors, about Jimi Hendrix.  I'm curious what others have been reading in this area.  Thoughts?