MUSIC

SWEET: DCO Season

There was a warmth, a triumphant sensation, which ran through the entire Dallas Civic Opera season. Perhaps it was the shared knowledge that opera, unlike symphonic music, had made it for another year in Dallas and, even more, had been tested against the tragic blow of Larry Kelly’s death and nonetheless survived.

I didn’t like Lucrezia Borgia and found myself daydreaming of sugar plums and sandcastles during much of Mignon. But Tosca and / Puritani were rip-roaring successes. Grand opera, we sensed as the winter grew chillier and the days darker, is here to stay. That, in and of itself, is tremendously good and satisfying news coming at a time when our city is under attack for being apathetic about fine music.

The highlight of the season was a fabulous production of Tosca. And if it is true that in Dallas you cannot find real Italian food, it is not true that in Dallas you cannot find real Italian opera. Tosca, in spite of what I thought was a bit of an overwrought performance by Magda Olivero, was a joy to hear and behold. I have never reconciled myself to the overwhelming beauty and complex movement of Act I. There is so much confused lovemaking, jealousy, political intrigue and somewhat sacrilegious humor on the part of Puccini. And finally, as the Cardinal enters to perform Mass, Tosca burning in her own jealousy, the plot laid thick by Scarpia who sings, who moans, who cannot contain his sadi3tic and sexual passions, finally, as the bells ring and God is praised and exalted, the opera, even in its first hour, leaves you in shambles. Angelotti is on fire; Cav-aradossi is on fire; Tosca is on fire; Scarpia is on fire. We must think, as Scarpia himself does, of Shakespeare and Othello to find the right dramatic parallel which raises our sensibilities to such dizzying heights.

There was little about Mignon save Marilyn Horne which could hold my interest. As characters ran in and out of drawing rooms, I thought of Lucy and Desi. But / Puritani seemed like the golden key which unlocked the gates to bel canto heaven. It was full steam ahead. Alfredo Kraus sounded a bit pinched about the voice, as though his britches were squeezing him, but Elena Nunziata more than made up for it. And the opera is the heaviest of heavy early 19th Century lyricism. It was a pyrotechnical treat and it is difficult to deny the pleasure to be gleaned from such vocal fireworks.



SOUR: Tired Jazz

KERA-FM’s Saturday afternoon “Blockbusters” are fascinating. They allow you to test your supposed devotion to certain artists or musical genres against a full day of listening. It is a spartan and worthwhile trial of endurance. You might think you love Dylan, or Sinatra, or the Beatles, but try listening to them from the moment you get up until the moment you go to bed. It’s rough. Only the strongest survive.

When Hugh Lampman hauled his record collection to the station and produced a personalized “Blockbuster,” of his favorite jazz albums I also listened to him all day and learned something I had never before realized: The jazz which to some degree is enjoying a resurgence these days on KERA-FM and elsewhere, the jazz of the middle ’50’s and early ’60’s associated mainly with the great state of California, is, to one degree or another, tired and shopworn. It doesn’t hold up.

Think back 10 or 15 years. The 90th Floor, here in Dallas, was a chic and popular night spot. Rock had not yet happened, and only the early R&B stuff enjoyed popularity among the young. But the basic music, for hip high school kids and those in college, was West Coast Jazz. In fact, the name of Dave Brubeck’s enormously successful album was just that: Jazz Goes to College. Kenton, June Christy, Chris Connor, the Four Freshman, the Hi-Los, Shorty Rogers and Howard Rumsey and Sauter-Finegan – they were all the rage.

It was hip -very, very hip -in those days to follow the musical fortunes of Cal Tjader and George Shearing. It was early easy listenin’; it was college, the fraternity house all amess, madras shirts and khaki ber-muda shorts. And to hear it all now again is to realize how unsubstantial the period was; it was fashion whose day has come and gone.

The good jazz -I argued then and I argue now -was happening on the other coast, in New York, being played by Clifford Brown and Sonny Rollins and Art Blakey, Monk and Coltrane and Miles. Of course, the two streams crossed over one another at several key points. Miles’ famous Birth of the Cool did, I believe, open up the floodgates through which passed an entire generation of tiptoeing musicians and singers. (Just think of Chet Baker.) And it is also true that sunny California did give birth to a style which would influence marvelous players like Art Pepper, Jimmy Giuffre, Paul Desmond and Gerry Mulligan. But the bread-and-butter stuff, the music played largely by Lampman, seems almost silly in its naivete and slickness.

Still, to hear it all -Kiz Harp singing “It’s A Lazy Afternoon,” JuneChristy doing “Something Cool”,Bobby Troup belting out “Route66” -depresses and saddens me. Themusic should have been better. Nowwe can hear that the period wasmarked by a certain decadence ofspirit.

Waxing Critical



I spent a day recently listening to what have to be among the world’s most precious records. They are Billie Holiday’s total output for Norman Granz, her recordings from 1946 through 1959, which she did for one or another of Mr. Granz’ labels. It is the most timeless jazz I know of. Billie provides a striking contrast to the cutesy jazz singers mentioned earlier-Christy, Connor, etc.- and the integrity of her voice and style, even as she approached the most tragic and demeaning of deaths, is never in question. (Contrast that with Mr. Sinatra.) The accompaniment, particularly the work of Oscar Peterson, Harry Edison and Ben Webster, is peerless. The ten volumes are in chronological order with precise information on dates and personnel. The series was produced in England, by Verve; it’s called The Voice of Jazz, Billie Holiday and is available by mail at Jazzway, 7214 Bergenline Avenue, Room One, North Bergen, N.J. 07047, at $5.50 per disc.



Waylon Jenning’s The Rambling Man (RCA) is several cuts above the standard country album. It is a lonely, beer drinking, heart-achin’, seedy side of life sort of record. You weep along. And I find myself playing and replaying “The Hunger,” whose opening lyrics are an adaptation of Bessie Smith’s “Reckless Blues”: “They said in her younger days/Her beauty was enough to drive men wild/But the hunger in her body then/Was not the hunger of some lonely child.”

Gato Barbieri is a way, for those of us who care, to approach the jazz avant-garde and come away with some lyrical satisfaction. Gato’s tenor playing, from an improvisa-tional standpoint, is unambitious, but his style is rich and gritty, bringing back happy memories of Earl Bostic, Junior Walker, Cole-man Hawkins and Illinois Jacquet. He has resurrected the infamous “jig tone.” He rasps. Lately he has dug up his Latin American roots in a series of wonderfully melodic records. The last one I heard was Hasta Siempre, Chapter Two (ABC), and though it sounds a little like South American Bar Mitzvah party music, its simplicity and roughness works on you. If James Brown is the witch doctor of the ghetto, the tribal master playing the basic ritualistic music over and again, then Gato may be serving a similar function in terms of a Latin/New Jazz synthesis.



There are always at least a few miraculous moments on any new Aretha Franklin album, and her latest, With Everything I Feel in Me (Atlantic), is no exception. I particularly like “When You Get Right Down to It” and “You Move Me.” The problem, even for those of us who are among her most appreciative admirers, is one of repetition. Years ago Jerry Wexler found the right formula for Aretha -earthier than her Columbia stuff, more gospel-tinged, lots of call-and-response with the amen girls, etc. And season after season, another album appears. Her voice remains a wonder, but somehow the material slows down the entire operation. Her last interesting work was the live gospel record done in California.

D.R.