Erik Satie - 3 Gymnopedies & Other Piano Works - Pascal Roge

Erik Satie, 17 May 1866 – 1 July 1925 was a self styled phonometrician from France. That's really all you need to know...

Gymnopedies Nos. 1 - 3

Je te veux
Preludes flasques pour un chien
Prelude en tapissarie
Nocturne No. 4
Vieux sequins et vieilles cuirasses
Embryons desseches
Gnossiennes Nos. 1 - 6
Sonatine bureaucratique
Le Piccadilly

Cecily's notes;

Personal Background: I listened to this because I heard a few tracks from an Ensemble Sarband album called Satie in the Orient or something like that. I loved the melodies so I looked at the two Satie albums I had and picked the one with the Gnossiennes on it. It was not an instant hit with me but I really loved the waltz track, so I kept playing it once and a while.

Resonance: At times opaque, yet repeated listens crack the emotional code of one piece after another. 'Je Te Veux' is a waltz so of course it should sound like falling in love. 'Le Piccadilly' is a ray of sunshine - if I made a mixtape (or modern equivalent) of "songs to brighten your day" this would be on it for sure. The Gnossiennes and Gymnopedies are haunting and delicate. Nothing is overcooked yet nothing is simple. Emotionally it is remarkably rewarding, not closed off and overly intellectualized. 5/5

Design: Sometimes I listen to this CD and start thinking the piano is the only necessary instrument. Guitar, violin, voice - any of these by themselves starts to feel incomplete after a while but piano in the hands of a master is a completely sustainable creation. 5/5

Utility: I listen to this more often than any other classical CD I own. This is partly due to the soothing atmosphere (one isn't always in the mood for orchestral bombast) but its also because, subdued as it is, it is a work of melodic genius. 5/5

Best: Gnossienne 1; Je te veux; Le Piccadilly; Gymnopedie 1;

Worst: There are some parts of 'Vieux Sequins et Vielles Cuirasses' that slightly annoy me but I really like other parts of the melody so it evens out.

Conclusion: A keeper. 15/15 points.

Ticharu's notes;

Personal Background: This CD was released in 1984, I may have had both the LP and the CD, hard to remember but I think I had both. The CD would have been one of the first CDs added to my little box of CDs in 1984. As such I'm amazed it still plays!

Resonance: Extremely high on all levels not least because I've been listening to these performances for a very long time. 35 years! So there aren't any other versions of these little pieces that sound right. Pascal Roge nails it.  5/5

Design: Satie is that composer who gives all non-virtuosi musicians and phonometricians hope that they too could invent such beautiful music. Of course it isn't that simple. Satie brought an intelligence to his composition. So controlled, so perfect, this music is completely beyond time and imagining. These notes reach right inside to the centre of your being. 5/5

Utility: All piano music, much as I love it, is difficult to listen to these days with the tinnitus. I have different frequencies in each ear something like 4 and a third micro-tones apart. The ringing seems to increase with piano music more than any other instrument. I've tried all sorts from adjusting the EQ, playing it quiet, playing it loud. I can add echo and reverb to my own piano music which helps mask the high pitched ringing but I can't add reverb to a recording like this. That would be silly. Piano, my favourite instrument in the world and I'm virtually unable to listen to it. Turning me into a grumpy old man ahead of my time... 1/5

Conclusion: The CD was re-released in Europe and the UK in 2006. Find a copy! Put it in your box and if you really love piano music, stay out of loud, deafening environments like rock concerts unless you have industrial grade hearing protection.

Richie Havens - Mixed Bag (1966)

The debut album by Richie Havens and still considered his best work by the majority of fans. Features his distinctive thumb-chorded and open E tuned guitar playing, according to Wiki.

High Flyin' Bird

I Can't Make It Anymore
Morning, Morning
Adam
Follow
Three Day Eternity
Sandy
Handsome Johnny
San Francisco Bay Blues
Just Like a Woman
Eleanor Rigby

Cecily's Notes

Personal Background: Not a lot to speak of here. I saw him on the Woodstock film and wasn't that impressed until the DVD was finished and I realized he and Arlo Guthrie were two of the strongest parts of the whole show. I listened to clips of this CD and bought it from Amazon, listened to it, enjoyed it, kinda forgot about it.

Resonance: Richie Havens is a lot like Neil Young - he's very sympathetic and relatable when singing songs of life and love but the second he starts in on prophecying and Dylanizing about the woes of his generation he loses me completely. What the heck am I supposed to make of 'Follow?' Elsewhere, the effect of his gravelly voice on the sweetly arranged sad pop songs he covers is very similar to that of Nico on her Chelsea Girl album. Power is invested in some fairly cliched material by this method and I enjoy it. However, nothing really stands up to the frankly chilling opening track, 'High Flying Bird,' which is a devastating lament that nothing else on Mixed Bag even comes close to for immediacy and impact. 4/5

Design: I think it would have helped if all the sermons had been broken up a little, instead of being lumped in together near the start. I also don't think ending it with two high profile covers helps Richie Havens make a statement about his own arrival on the music scene. Otherwise the album flows quite well and would have appealed to the "bright young things" of the era - thoughtful, idealistic, educated material cheek-by-jowl with mellow folk-pop. Perfect for coffee with the roommates. 4/5

Utility: I don't listen to this record very often. It's simply not that well-suited to anything outside of introspective listening. 1/5

Best: High Flyin' Bird; San Francisco Bay Blues.

Worst: Follow.

Conclusion: Coming up with an actual rating for this album was kind of difficult. It gets 9/15, which is weak, but its a fairly strong record and definitely doesn't sound like anything else in my collection - I just don't find myself in the mood to play it that much and I don't see the future holding much difference in that regard. Maybe I just always get 'Morning, Morning' stuck in my head for days after listening and it subconsciously puts me off wanting to go through that again.

Ticharu's Notes

Personal Background: I would frequently run across Richie Havens albums when I worked at The Wax. Spin them for people in the store. I'd always find a song I liked sort of like an Iggy Pop album in that way. There's always a really good song in amongst the less memorable stuff. If you're a fan, it's the voice you're a fan of more than anything. I'm a fan of Haven's voice but the albums are a mixed bag (sorry) but it's true in many ways. His albums are a mix of styles, covers and subject matter. Interesting but maybe not completely satisfying. I would have loved to see him live and I'd also like to find the song I thought so much of back in the day, can't remember the name of the song or which record it was on. Thought it was on this one.

My notes deviate from form in that I've just rated the songs. High Flyin' Bird is a strong start. Classic Haves and 5 stars. An album of material in this style and this quality would have been amazing. I Can't Take it Anymore is a nice mid 60s pop song I almost wouldn't mind hearing again at some point. 2 stars. Morning Morning has a mid 60s pop country feel and it's a stronger piece of music. 4 stars. Adam sounds like a song composed after an LSD adventure with Gabor Szabo. I'm not sure Gabor was into that and I highly doubt he's playing on this album but that's what it sounds like to me. Great track, probably best they kept it short. 5 stars. Unlike Follow. At first I thought 'nothing wrong with this song, what's Cecily on about?' But it does go on a bit. At the halfway point I just forwarded to the next track. 1 star. I think that was side one...

Three Day Eternity is another rather strong track. Easy to like. 5 stars. Sandy changes style again and makes me think there were several producers and different musicians involved so I'm going to have to consult Wiki... where I too learned this album is considered his best work... don't you hate that? You're an artist and you've spent your whole life playing and recording and they say the first thing you did is the best thing you did... why bother? I'm guilty as anyone, well I liked their first album... anyway, Sandy is OK, 3 stars. Handsome Johnny is cited as one of the stronger songs on the album but in the pantheon of anti-war songs there are more powerful statements, Machine Gun by Hendrix for one but I like the fact that folk singers could sing songs like Handsome Johnny and be remembered for it. The sentiment is right but I don't know how to rate it. It's preachy. San Francisco Bay Blues is more of that mid 60s pop production that seems to follow every other track on the album. I like this one or almost like this one. 3 stars.

I skipped the last two tracks... what can I say? The joke is that people covering Dylan normally do a better version, so even a better version of Just Like a Woman isn't something I want to sit through. And nobody does a better version of a Beatles track, ever, anywhere, that I've ever heard but then I've never heard this version so I guess I'll never know.

So there you have it. I've given 5 stars to the "best" and not bothered listening to the "worst". My conclusion is... it's a mixed bag :)

Gabor Szabo - Dreams (1968)

Hungarian Jazz Guitar to accompany your voyage to the moon...

01 - Galatea's Guitar

02 - Half the Day is Night

03 - Song of Injured Love

04 - The Fortune Teller

05 - Fire Dance

06 - The Lady in the Moon

07 - Ferris Wheel

Cecily's Notes

Personal Background: My father gave me a copy of this CD to further my jazz edification. Thanks, Dad.

Resonance: This is a pretty album. There's a lot going on but its all happening very quietly, kind of like the inhabitants of a mystic swamp - there's your fireflies and fairy lights and crickets and a chorus of frogs and if you want to take your throw rug and matcha tea out to a handy stump and get started on your evening's meditation nothing will stop you but if you aren't very good at meditation then you'll start looking around and wishing for a glimpse of something bigger like a flamingo or an alligator. That would be cool. I guess this is my roundabout way of saying it doesn't really have that wow factor even though it is tremendously pretty. 2/5

Design: Can't fault it here. He covers Falla and Donovan and makes them sound the same. The percussion is marvelous. A thing of beauty, really. If only Gabor Szabo would indulge in a little healthy drama, get some rises and falls to take the listener on the journey promised by that cover... 4/5

Utility: Sometimes I want to listen to something low-key and when I do this is one of my first choices, right up there with Satie (though Satie is more emotionally accessible). It gets a lot of use around the house. 4/5

Best: 'Galatea's Guitar,' because the first five minutes in a mystic swamp are always gonna be the best.

Worst: Drawing a blank.

Conclusion: 10/15

Ticharu's Notes

Personal Background: I'd run across Gabor's playing on a Chico Hamilton disc. Great stuff, works amazingly well with Chico. So I saw this album cover on one of those streaming sites I was trying to use back in the day and gave it a go. Pretty interesting stuff but I don't believe I ever listened to the whole thing, now not being the time to rant about streaming services endless choice meaning I was constantly switching between the million and one things I've never heard and never listening to anything twice or even all the way through... so I hastily Amazon'd a copy of the CD to Cecily thinking I'd found something amazing.

Resonance: This is the only Gabor Szabo album I've listened to, several times now I have a copy, the others I've just sampled on YouTube and while they all have some great guitar playing on them, they all fall down with song selection. So far Dreams is the strongest along those lines but it's still kind of hard to pull any emotion from the music or form a very strong attachment to. Maybe it's the flaws that make it human and that's where I find the connection. 3/5

Design: Is "folk-jazz" a thing? That's how I'd describe this music. Covers a lot of stylistic ground very quickly, shifting sands, urban smooth, samba, medieval grunge, Spanish guitar, slightly rock and blues at times, psychedelic Dead Head jams and that's all in the opening track! It isn't your average jazz guitar trio. Dreams is like a vaguely Oriental dream-scape with strings and some lovely subtle percussion. There's little about it that screams of showy guitar which is good but it does lack any real edge. And then there are the "lounge" pieces. Lounge music without the kitsch factor is designed for what? A dentist office? 3/5

Utility: So... at it's worst you could play this album in a waiting room... at it's best you could play this album in an opium den... so the little room with my stereo occupies a middle ground somewhere between having your teeth worked on and being awake in your dream. 4/5

Best: The Fortune Teller, Galatea's Guitar

Worst: Song of Injured Love, Ferris Wheel

Conclusion: Dreams is possibly Gabor's best solo effort, I do find it interesting, and I will continue the quest for another Gabor Szabo album to add to the collection. 10/15