Week 6

I don’t think there’s a chart in Carlos Santana’s book that I don’t like, even if I’m not a fan of his music, and by fan I simply mean, he’s not an artist I sit down to listen to with regularity.  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.  I just don’t own any of his albums, nor do I make an effort to listen to him.  However, after listening to Oye Como Va with a critical ear this week, that’s really a shame.  His 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.  It’s not surprising to me that versions of Oye Como Va appear in the books of many public school jazz bands.

When I was a lowly high school freshman, Wayne’s World made its jump to the big screen, a funny, memorable flick from a funny, memorable SNL sketch.  My knowledge of rock ‘n’ roll at the time was very limited (I wasn’t one of the “cool kids” either), but this movie introduced me to more of Queen than just We Will Rock You (which, at the time, and even today, I found to be not the greatest sports anthem, but the most annoying), as well as the music of Led Zeppelin.  I clearly recall 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 does not resonate 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, 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.  The listening gives me great pause to connect to our Curriculum Unit project and the accuracy and history of the charts.