Forgotten Music: December 2010 - The Summary

Just because I didn’t have a chance to write my own Forgotten Music essay doesn’t mean that others found the time to write one. I want to thank Todd Mason for not only writing and posting his own essay, but also for collecting the links of others who found the time to post yesterday. I’ll get my act together by next month.

Bill Crider - Recitation records
Jerry House - Cisco Houston
Randy Johnson - Joe Satriani - Surfing with the Alien
George Kelley - Come and Get It: The Best of Apple Records
Evan Lewis - Jerry Landis (AKA Paul Simon) - "The Lone Teen Ranger"
Todd Mason - “Sunday Night/Night Music” (NBC-TC); Dave Brubeck on CBS Radio
Charlie Ricci - John Bosell - Festival of the Heart
Patti Abbott - Hoagy Carmichael - "Am I Blue?"

Until the next Forgotten Music on 27 January 2011

"The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" (Annotated) - A Review

Yesterday, as I have done the past few December 27ths, I re-read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's only Christmastime Sherlock Holmes story, "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle." Only this time it was a little different.

For Christmas, I was given the first two volumes of the new annotated Sherlock Holmes, edited by Leslie S. Klinger. These volumes, hardbound and in a slipcase, are gorgeous. Any self-respecting Holmes fan simply must own a copy of this set.

What I expected was the typical definitions of random pieces of Victorian tidbits that modern readers wouldn't know, starting with the original publication date of January 1892. Moreover, a note describes how Dickens and the Victorians "invented"Christmas as we know it now, while another gives light as to how gems are measured, or how long The Times had been in existence. That kind of detail, along with the illustrations by Sidney Paget or contemporary photos of 1890s London, is a boon to the reader.

What surprised me was the scholarship devoted to figuring out if Holmes's deductions were correct or not. I know all about the gentle fiction that supposes Holmes and Watson were real people. I don't have a problem with that. That's kind of fun, really. It's the need to, I assume, outwit Holmes, or, at least, point out where he erred. I wonder where that need arises? I guess that's the true treasure of this new, annotated anthology: we get, all in one place, a century's worth of criticism.

Part of me wonders if all this nitpicking isn't just a veiled attempt to point out the flaws in Doyle's writing. "Blue Carbuncle" is one of the stories that has an addendum, a separate essay related to the events in the story. This story earns "A Winter's Crop," a complete discussion of whether or not a goose has a crop. Interesting scholarship, to be sure, and worthy of discourse. But, seriously, does the fact about the existence of a goose's crop add or subtract to the reading of the tale? Or whether or not Holmes inferences about the hat hold water? No.

I glanced at the dates of the stories in front and behind "Blue Carbuncle" and noticed that they are a month apart. Thus, Doyle is writing these stories, one per month, from July 1891 to June 1892. He still has a day job as well as a wife and one kid. He didn't have the internet to double-check to see if a goose has a crop. I suspect he wrote these tales in a flash and edited afterwards, if at all. Also, the reading public in the 1890s probably were not the avid geeks many of us are today.

All this is to say that while it is a fun exercise to go back and see if Holmes's reasoning is sound and to point out where it isn't, one should enjoy the story as it is. Give Doyle some slack. He's only a writer. It's not like he was as good as writer as Watson...

Houston Texans Haiku: Week 16 at Denver Broncos

Don't have it in me
To attempt a haiku now
How long 'til next year?

Game was such a snooze
That I almost forgot to
Write these few poems.

Late in the contest
I just knew we'd lose somehow.
Did not disappoint.

It's almost funny
How talented we are at
Not earning more wins.

Houston Texans - 23
Denver Broncos - 24

Christmas Noir at Do Some Damage

Over at my group blog, Do Some Damage, we're running a series of Christmas noir stories. The stories are posted just about everyday--with some days having two--until Sunday, 2 January 2011.

So, if you need a little extra spice during the holiday season, head on over and take a read.

A Charles Dickens/Writing Style Question

(Lest anyone think I've abandoned all mystery-related posting in favor of bad Haiku for a bad NFL team, today's post is presented.)

I started Charles Dickens' "The Cricket on the Hearth" today. I've never read it and am looking forward to reading it in these days leading up to Christmas.

What struck me was the style of prose. Not the lofty, lengthy sentences Dickens was prone to write. I'm talking about the insertion of Dickens himself into the story. Or, rather, A Narrator. Exhibit A is the first paragraph:

The kettle began it! Don't tell me what Mrs. Peerybingle said. I know better. Mrs. Peery- bingle may leave it on record to the end of time that she couldn't say which of them began it; but, I say the kettle did. I ought to know, I hope! The kettle began it, full five minutes by the little waxy- faced Dutch clock in the corner, before the Cricket uttered a chirp.

The Narrator knows the story and is telling the story. He has authorial asides but also knows the inner thoughts of the main characters.

Is there a term for this type of writing? My first thought was that it was third person omniscient, but, usually, the Omnipotent Author doesn't insert himself into the story. C. S. Lewis does this, too. Is this an English thing?

Any thoughts?

(NOTE: My writing at this blog has been pretty sparse in recent months. I plan on re-upping on my blog commitment starting in January. Thanks for reading.)

Houston Texans Haiku: Week 15 at Tennessee Titans

Was asked "Why haiku?"
I'm asking myself the same
After today's game.

Five and nine. Oh boy.
Week One seems so far away.
Was it this season?

No playoffs. Draft rank
Not as "good" as the Panthers.
It's purgatory.

Is the mere presence
Of professional football
In Houston enough?

Got outta church at
Ten past twelve. Already down
Seven. It figures.

So apathetic
That I don't even care t'was
The Titans beat us.

Time to do what all
Texans fans do every year:
Watch another team.

Houston Texans - 17
Tennessee Titans - 31

Houston Texans Haiku: Week 14 vs. Baltimore Ravens

Looked great for one half.
To come so close, yet so far.
Like a hard groin kick.

Season now over.
Tell me what we're playing for?
Really. Please tell me.

Coach K does enough
To keep things interesting.
Is that just enough?

Can't complain too much.
Damn fine second half. Thrilling.
We win if "heads" called.

Two long scoring drives
Why can't we do that more? Why?!
Snatched defeat again.

Baltimore Ravens - 34
Houston Texans - 28 (OT)

Houston Texans Haiku: Week 13* at Philadelphia Eagles

Still not good enough.
Not ready for prime time games.
Will we ever be?

Q3 like Week One.
Power football. It looked grand.
Engine just wore out.

Arian Foster.
Why is he not on the field
On every dang play?

December football.
The Texans fall. Then play well
When no one's looking.

I long for the time
When it's the Texans who are
Supposed to win games.

Coach K getting mad.
At least he has some passion.
Just not quite enough.

Division is ripe
For the picking. Texans show
Up without basket.

Houston Texans - 24
Philadelphia Eagles - 34

*No, I didn't miss Week 12. I just forgot to account for Houston's bye week.

Nice to *see* the game since the NFL Network used to be a premium channel.

Sigh. No more local football until 13 December, the Monday nighter with Baltimore. Lovely.

Book Review Club: Silence of the Grave by Arnaldur Indridason

(This is the December 2010 edition of Barrie Summy's Book Review Club. For the complete list, click on the icon at the end of this review.)

I can’t even remember why or how I came to read Jar City a few years ago. I know it was during the winter. I sometimes tend towards seasonal reading and, well, what better setting for a winter novel than a story set in Iceland. After watching the PBS series “Wallander” with Kenneth Branagh, I had the hankering for another foreign novel and my thoughts returned to Iceland.

Silence of the Grave by Arnaldur Indridason is the second major book to hit English-speaking bookstores. The protagonist of Indridason’s series is Detective Inspector Erlendur, a morose, divorced man with two estranged children and a small team of detectives who try their best to keep his spirits up. As someone who might never step foot on Icelandic soil, Indridason’s book are rich in local flavor. Not so much large descriptions of the landscape, the customs, or the food, mind you, but there’s a palpable sense of place in these stories. It’s what invigorates the reading of the tale even if the main character sometimes can’t figure out where to sleep.

The book itself isn’t gruesome, but the first sentence might give you the creeps:

He knew at once it was a human bone, when he took it from the baby who was sitting on the floor chewing it.

Ick. The baby’s brother leads his mother to the place where he found the “funny rock” and discovers a buried skeleton. Erlendur’s team is called in and, upon a quick inspection, decides to defer to an archeological team. The archeologists begin their digging, which goes on agonizingly slow. The pace frustrates Erlendur, but allows the author to weave a separate, parallel story.

In this second story, an unnamed mother of a crippled daughter, marries a man. With him, she has two boys. What she didn’t know when she agreed to be his wife was that he is a wife beater. In unflinchingly harsh descriptions, Indridason shows the reader this family’s life, how the mother and children cringe at the husband’s seemingly random acts of violence and how her will is gradually ground to dust.

The mother is not the only one dealing with familial issues. Erlendur’s daughter, a habitual drug user in her twenties, is pregnant. He has had few good times since his divorce twenty years ago and to describe his relationship with her as troubled is putting it lightly. She calls Erlendur out of the blue asking for help. In the main subplot, Erlendur searches for a finds his daughter, Eva, lying in a coma on the street.

Not too far into the book do you, the reader, realize two things. One, the time period of the mother’s story is in the past. Two, the skeleton that Erlendur is investigating somehow is related to the mother’s family. You just don’t know who. Or why. Gradually, Erlendur and his team uncover some truths of the past--and he has to come to terms with his own failed family as he sits by his daughter’s bedside in the hospital--but they can’t quite get every detail in order. The mother’s story line moves forward, too, and it gets to a point where you start guessing about the identity of the skeleton. I know I did, and I am not afraid to admit that I was wrong about a detail or two. That’s the fun of reading a book like this.

The prose, translated by the late Bernard Scudder, moves along briskly, Indridason’s lean style as bleak as Erlendur’s outlook on life. The characterizations are rich, even if only an outline of a person is given. More than a few times I found the technical writer side of me wanting to edit the grammar. It isn’t bad or wrong, it just that I had to re-read a passage or two to make sure which noun referred to which pronoun. Nothing major.

Silence of the Grave won the 2005 British Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger award for best novel. The cover lists the story as a “thriller” and, frankly, I was expecting the usual type thriller, a la James Bond or Dan Brown. This isn’t that type of thriller. In fact, I think the book is mislabeled. There’s little thrilling about this story, except a certain passage towards the end. Guess we all have different definitions of the same word.

I enjoyed Silence of the Grave and I’ve already moved on to the third English-translated book, Voices. Jar City was made into a pretty decent movie. I’d like to see more of Indridason’s novels made into movies. They are perfect for the PBS Masterpiece Mystery show. If you like those types of programs, you’ll like this book.

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@Barrie Summy

Houston Texans Haiku: Week 11 vs. Tennessee Titans

I missed the win. Natch.
Christmas shopping at game time.
Think I had more fun.

Now that the season's
gone astray, Texans play good.
Wait 'til next year, 'gain...

Hockey game broke out
During the football game. No
Place for that at all.

Tennessee Titans - 0
Houston Texans - 20

Forgotten Music: November 2010 - Chicago 25: The Christmas Album

Back in 1998, Christmas arrived in August. Well, it did if you were a Chicago fan, that is. You see, it was in that month, the hottest down in here in Texas, when the then-thirty-year-old band released their first ever Christmas CD. And wouldn’t you know it was numbered twenty-five?

When you stop to think about it, you had to wonder why one of America’s most successful rock acts never recorded even one Christmas song. Peter Cetera did a one-off, semi-countrified version of “Silent Night” and Robert Lamm recorded “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” but that was it. The closest the band ever got to a winter song was “Song of the Evergreens” off of Chicago VII.

Chicago 25, coming three years after Night and Day, Chicago’s CD of newly-arranged big band standards, the expectations among the Chicago fan base was quite high for the Christmas CD. What songs would they select? How would the band stamp their indelible sound on time-honored classics? And, honestly, how could they add anything new to the endless steam of Christmas music we hear year after year. And would any of these versions become definitive?

I could certainly give a track-by-track run down of Chicago 25 (and I have, to many friends and fellow Chicago fans) but I’ll point out a few high points of this CD. As I have mentioned before in previous reviews of Chicago records, the sheer number of instruments and vocalists in the band brings a multitude of possibilities to any one song. These seven musicians are professionals who can evoke any number of nuances from their instruments. Walt Parazaider brings all of his saxophones and his flute is featured on many songs. Robert Lamm’s piano playing, including electric piano, is a joy to hear throughout the fourteen songs of Chicago 25 but especially “The Christmas Song”. Bill Champlin’s vocal arrangements (“What Child is This?”) can give boy bands like N*Sync a run for their money to say nothing of his tickling the keys of his B3 organ. Keith Howland’s guitar embellishments interspersed in the songs evoke a jazz feel more than a rock sensibility. Back in 1998, trumpeter Lee Loughnane was undergoing a renaissance in the band as his trumpet playing markedly improved in the concerts and showed up on Chicago 25.

All the songs selected and arranged got the typical Chicago treatment. Some of the tunes are better for it. A few surprises do pop up. “Feliz Navidad,” as sung by Jose Feliciano, is one of the happiest Christmas songs out there. I dare you not to tap your toe when this song starts its inexorable march in your brain. Under Lamm’s reading, the song is a slow, moderately-paced song of beauty. In a nice touch, Lamm adds some xylophone and marimbas. It’s one of the unexpected yet understated songs on this record.

You can’t say Champlin’s bluesy “Santa Clause is Comin' to Town” is unexpected, however. To say that Champlin is soulful is to understate the obvious. But the rest of the band—especially Jason Scheff’s bass playing—really gets into the act. This is one of the funkiest cuts in Chicago’s catalogue and it gives the horns a chance to stand and just wail. What makes this rendition so much fun is Champlin’s lyrical riffs. “You better be cool\y’all gotta chill\you gotta behave\you all know the drill.” And the B3 just weaves in and out of this track. A highlight if you like your carols just a little bit dirty.

“Christmas Time is Here” is the Vince Guaraldi song from “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” Lamm acknowledges his appreciation to Guaraldi with a delicate version of this newer classic. The horn arrangement is quite good as is Howland’s guitar licks. You'll love Lamm’s electric piano. He noodles in and out of the melody and his own vocals. Loughnane’s muted trumpet ends the piece, setting a lovely mood that can sweep you away back to your childhood.

The next track, however, will wake you up. Chicago’s secret weapon in 1998 was Lee Loughnane’s vocals. Yes, the trumpeter sang a few songs back in the 1970s (on Chicago VII, X, and XI) but had not stepped behind the mic since. So “Let it Snow” was a wonderful treat. In a version that would be at home down in New Orleans, Loughnane’s pulls a Louis Armstrong, singing and playing. This song proved so popular in 1998 that the band recorded a version in Spanish. “Let it Snow” even found its way into the summer tour set list. It was a little weird hearing this song in the heat but the feel of the song will melt snow or your margarita.

As good as these renditions are—Feliz Navidad” is a nice change and other songs, like “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" are my preferred versions—most of these songs don’t quite reach the level of definitive. One exception exists. Chicago’s reading of “Little Drummer Boy” puts all the other versions—and, yeah, that includes the Bowie/Crosby version—to the back of the line. The song itself, while nice, never had the heft of other Christmas songs, secular or sacred. Chicago changes the equation. In a fade-in, the drums kick up a shuffle beat, not fast, not slow, but just enough to get your toe tapping and to make you realize this is something different. As Bill Champlin’s soulful voice begins to sing the first verse, producer Roy Bittan’s (E Street Band) accordion colors the feel of the song, giving the song an acoustic quality underneath the main beat. Champlin makes it through the entire first verse with only the horns offering the answering counter melody. As you first listen to this version of the song, you’ll probably think “Okay, this is a great song and the horns are wonderful and discreet.” Then the chorus kicks in. And, in a first for Chicago, there is a choir: twelve additional singers to go with the three main Chicago vocalists. The result is somewhere between magical and sublime. Verse two brings in Jason Scheff’s high tenor, floating above Champlin and the choir. During this vocal onslaught, the horns continue to wail away and the accordion drones on and on. The horn charts are so stamped in my head that I hear them even when listening to another rendition. I consider this song one of the best songs in Chicago’s entire catalogue and a definitive version of "Little Drummer Boy."

Five years after Chicago 25, Rhino updated the disc with six additional songs and renamed the collection Chicago Christmas: What’s it Gonne Be Santa? It’s a testament to a band with vocalists growing out of the woodwork that five of the six new songs showcase a different lead singer. Again, the newer songs give that distinctive Chicago stamp on old classics. Lamm’s “Winter Wonderland” is pure Chicago circa 1973. In retrospect, “Winter Wonderland” provides a nice clue to the types of songs Lamm would release a year later on his excellent “Subtlety + Passion” disc. “This Christmas” has Scheff in full R&B mode while the acoustic “Bethlehem,” an original tune, provides a nice, acoustic glimpse of the three kings.

Just as “Little Drummer Boy” stood head and shoulders above the other tracks on Chicago 25, “Jolly Old St. Nicholas” is the best song from the extra tracks. Simply put, this is one of the flat-out most fun songs Chicago has ever recorded. The newest—and youngest—member of the band, guitarist Keith Howland, arranged this song and sings lead. It’s a fast, up-tempo song that brings to mind “When is This World Comin’ To?” off of Chicago VI. The horn charts are fantastic and, as is my wont, the bari sax all but blats its way out of your speakers. In the original lyric, the final verse lists the various toys that kids want. Howland tailors the final verse to instruments for his band mates. At the end, after he’s questioned Santa on what treat will be left for him, Howland shouts out “How ‘bout a shiny electric guitar?” and lets rip a guitar riff and solo that would have made Chuck Berry proud. It’s an exuberant ending to and exuberant song. It’ll leave you smiling and tapping your foot long after the song fades away.

Christmas is all about memories, usually from childhood. At times, it’s even about memories you never had but a nostalgia induced by music. Nat King Cole’s reading of “The Christmas Song” is definitive and no Christmas would be complete without hearing it at least one (fifty?) time. Ditto for Crosby’s “White Christmas.” But if you want something fun, occasionally different, but altogether satisfying, you can’t go wrong with inviting Chicago into your house for Christmas.