title: Zhang Zuolin

text: His power rested on the Fengtian Army, which was composed of about 100,000 men in 1922 and almost triple that number by the end of the decade. It had obtained large stocks of weapons left over from World War I and included naval units, an air force and an armaments industry. Zhang integrated a large number of local militias into his army, and thus prevented Manchuria from falling into the chaos which reigned in China proper at the time. Jilin province was ruled by a military governor, who was said to be a cousin of Zhang; Heilongjiang had its own regional warlord, who never displayed any ambitions outside the province.


title: Zhang Zuolin

text: Although Manchuria officially remained a part of the Republic of China, it became more or less an independent state isolated from China by its geography and protected by the Fengtian Army. The only pass at Shanhaiguan, where the Great Wall meets the sea, could easily be closed. In a time when the central government was barely able to pay the salaries of its civil servants, no more revenues were forwarded to Beijing. In 1922 Zhang took control of the only rail link, the Beijing–Shenyang Railway, north of the Great Wall and also kept tax revenues from this railroad. Only postal and customs revenues continued to be sent to Beijing, because they had been pledged to the victorious foreign powers after the failed Boxer Rebellion of 1900, and Zhang feared their intervention.


title: Zhang Zuolin

text: It was proposed that Zhang Zuolin's domain (the "Three Eastern Provinces") take Outer Mongolia under its administration by the Bogda Khan and Bodo in 1922 after pro-Soviet Mongolian Communists seized control of Outer Mongolia.


title: Zhang Zuolin

text: Manchuria shared a long border with Russia, which had been weakened militarily after the October Revolution. The line of the Chinese Eastern Railway, which was under Russian control, ran through northern Manchuria and the land immediately on either side of the tracks was considered to be Russian territory. From 1917 to about 1924 the new Communist government in Moscow was having such difficulties establishing itself in Siberia that often it was not clear who was in charge of operating the railway on the Russian side. Still, Zhang avoided a showdown and after 1924 the Soviets re-established their dominance over the railroad.


title: Zhang Zuolin

text: The situation's precariousness was demonstrated by an outbreak of pneumonic plague in Hailar, a town at the western end of the Chinese Eastern Railway, in October 1920. Chinese troops were present in great number and turned railway quarantine into a farce. The soldiers freed some of their comrades who had been imprisoned as contacts, and they escaped to the mining town of Dalainor on the Amur River, where a quarter of the population died. In the other direction, all of the towns along the Chinese Eastern Railway as far as Vladivostok were infected. Around 9,000 died, while only a few contacts were able to reach south Manchuria.


title: Zhang Zuolin

text: The Japanese posed more of a problem. After the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05 they had gained two important outposts in south Manchuria: The Guandong (Kwantung) Leased Territory consisted of a peninsula in the southernmost part of Manchuria. It included the ice-free port of Dairen (Chinese: Dalian), which became the main link to Japan. Reaching northward from the colony, the South Manchurian Railway passed through Shenyang (referred to as Mukden by the Japanese), linking up with the Chinese Eastern Railway in Changchun. The land on either side of the railway tracks remained extraterritorial, now being controlled by the Japanese Kwantung Army. This army maintained 7,000-14,000 men in Manchuria, tolerating and being tolerated by the Fengtian Army, although Zhang kept up a war of words, playing on anti-Japanese sentiments in the Chinese public.


title: Zhang Zuolin

text: Lu Zhankui, a Mongol officer under Zhang, was instrumental in bringing Oomoto leader Onisaburo Deguchi, and Aikido founder Morihei Ueshiba, to Mongolia in 1924.


title: Zhang Zuolin

text: At the beginning of the 1920s Zhang transformed Manchuria from an unimportant frontier region to one of the most prosperous parts of China. He had inherited a financially weak provincial governmentin 1917 Fengtian faced ten outstanding loans from foreign-controlled consortia and banks totaling over 12 million yuan. Zhang chose Wang Yongjiang, who had served as head of a regional tax office, for the task of solving Fengtian's financial problems. He was appointed director of the bureau of finance.


title: Zhang Zuolin

text: A number of currencies were circulating in the province, as was the custom in China, and the paper notes issued by the provincial government had experienced a steady depreciation in value. Wang decided to switch to a silver standard and set the initial value of the new silver yuan equal to the Japanese gold yen, which was accepted throughout Korea and Manchuria. Much to the surprise of the Chinese, the new currency even gained in value against the gold yen, although Japanese businessmen claimed that it was not backed up by sufficient silver reserves. Wang then used the newly gained credibility to introduce another note, the Fengtian dollar, which was not convertible into silver anymore. However, it was accepted by the government for the payment of taxes, a sign of faith in its own currency.


title: Zhang Zuolin

text: Next, Wang turned to the chaotic tax collecting system. Because of his former job, he was well acquainted with the abuses of the system and introduced a number of controls. The provincial government had also invested government funds in various enterprises, many of which were poorly managed. Wang ordered a review of government-sponsored firms. From 1918, revenues rose steadily, and by 1921 all outstanding loans had been repaid and there was even a budget surplus. Wang was rewarded by being appointed Civil Governor of Fengtian province while remaining director of the bureau of finance. He retained the title of Military Governor of Fengtian. Still, more than two-thirds of the budget was allocated to the military.


title: Zhang Zuolin

text: In 1919 France had left Renault FT tanks in Vladivostok after the joint Allied intervention, and Zhang Zuolin soon incorporated them into the Manchurian Army.


title: Zhang Zuolin

text: In the summer of 1920, Zhang made a foray into North China on the other side of the Great Wall, trying to topple Duan Qirui, the leading warlord of Beijing. He did this by supporting another warlord, Cao Kun, with troops and they successfully ousted Duan. As a reward, Zhang was granted control over most of Inner Mongolia to the west of Manchuria.


title: Zhang Zuolin

text: In December 1921, Zhang visited Beijing; at his request, the entire cabinet, led by Jin Yunpeng, resigned, leaving him free to appoint a new government. Installing Liang Shiyi as premier, he proposed a new constitution and the resolution of the republic's financial difficulties. Now a figure of national prominence, he quickly came into conflict with Wu Peifu, a divisional commander of the North China Zhili clique, which was based in the province of Zhili that surrounded Beijing.


title: Zhang Zuolin

text: In the spring of 1922, Zhang personally took the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Fengtian Army, and on 19 April his forces entered China proper. As his men took Beijing three days later, fighting soon broke out. On May 4, the Fengtian Army was seriously defeated by the Zhili Army in what came to be known as the First Zhili–Fengtian War. Three-thousand troops had been killed and 7,000 wounded, and Zhang's units retreated to Shanhai Pass. Zhili forces were in control of Beijing and Zhang's image as a national leader had been destroyed and he reacted by declaring Manchuria independent from Beijing in May 1922.


title: Zhang Zuolin

text: On June 22, Wang left Shenyang for Japanese-controlled Dalian, allegedly for treatment of an eye infection. From there he challenged Zhang by demanding restrictions to military spending and complete control over civil affairs. Zhang gave in, lifted martial law and agreed to a separation of civil and military administration in all of the three provinces. Wang returned on 6 August, thereby ensuring Manchuria's continued stability.


title: Zhang Zuolin

text: In the following years Wang realized a far-reaching development plan. He tried to bring more workers into the booming Manchurian economy. Most had come on a temporary basis, returning to their homes in North China in winter. The Manchurian government now encouraged them to bring women and children, and settle permanently. As an incentive, they were made eligible for reduced fares on all Chinese-owned railways in Manchuria, received funds to build dwellings and were promised total ownership after five years of continuous occupation. Rent for the land was canceled for the first years. Most were sent to the interior of Manchuria, where they reclaimed land for agriculture, or worked in forestry or mines. Between 1924 and 1929 the amount of land under tillage increased from to .


title: Zhang Zuolin

text: Manchuria's economy boomed while chaos and uncertainty reigned in the rest of China. An especially ambitious project was to break the Japanese monopoly on cotton textiles by creating a large mill which, much to Japan's sorrow, succeeded. The government also invested in other enterprises, among them quite a number of Sino-Japanese companies. During this time the Fengtian Army successfully repressed Manchuria's many bandits. Various railway lines were built, among them the Shenyang-Hailong line, which opened in 1925. In 1924 Wang amalgamated three regional banks into the Official Bank of the Three Eastern Provinces, and became its general director. By this he tried to create a development bank and at the same time keep accurate records of military spending.


title: Zhang Zuolin

text: After the disastrous defeat of 1922, Zhang had reorganized his Fengtian Army, started a training program, and bought new equipment, including mobile radios and machine guns. In the autumn of 1924, fighting broke out again in Central China. Zhang saw an opportunity to capture North China and Beijing and become head of the central government. While most other warlord armies fought along the Yangtze River, Zhang attacked North China, thus beginning the Second Zhili–Fengtian War.


title: Zhang Zuolin

text: In a surprise move, a Zhili commander, Feng Yuxiang, toppled Cao Kun and took control of Beijing. He shared power with Zhang, and both appointed the same Duan Qirui whom he had ousted in 1920. Zhang purchased 14 more FT tanks in 1924 and 1925 for the army, and they were used in the battles.


title: Zhang Zuolin

text: By August 1925, the Fengtian Army controlled four large provinces within the Great Wall (Zhili (where Beijing was located but not Beijing itself)—Shandong, Jiangsu and Anhui). One unit even marched as far south as the city of Shanghai. However, the military situation was so unstable that Sun Chuanfang, a Zhili clique warlord whose sphere of influence extended along the Yangtze, managed to push back the Fengtian Army again. By November, Zhang held only a small corner of north China, including a corridor connecting Beijing with Manchuria. Attacks on Beijing continued into the spring of 1926.


title: Zhang Zuolin

text: Manchuria was placed under martial law again, and its economy disintegrated under the burden of the insatiable war machine. Old taxes were increased and new taxes invented. Zhang demanded that more paper money be printed, out of step with silver reserves. An extremely serious crisis erupted in November 1925, when Guo Songling revolted and ordered his troops to turn back and march on Shenyang. The Japanese brought in reinforcements to protect their interests in Manchuria, but Zhang managed to put down the revolt in December. Even more seriously, Wang Yongjiang, now the civil governor of Manchuria, realized that his work of nine years had been in vain. He left Shenyang in February 1926 and resigned. Before his death from kidney failure on 1 November 1927, Wang, totally disillusioned, did not reply when Zhang asked him to return. Instead, Wang severed all connections with Zhang.


title: Zhang Zuolin

text: With the loss of his financial expert, Zhang took drastic action. In March 1926 he appointed a new governor, whose only job was to supply the Fengtian Army with large amounts of money. He issued new provincial bonds and forced businesses and local communities to purchase them. (Early in 1927, he even entered into the opium trade by selling expensive licenses for the sale and use of opium.) Bank reserves and railway revenues were plundered, and ever more paper notes were issued. The best indicator of Manchuria's economic decline was the value of the Fengtian dollar (yuan), which had started on parity with the Japanese gold yen, but by February 1928, 40 yuan was equivalent to 1 gold yen. In the winter of 1926, Manchuria's economy collapsed. Workers went on strike, and hungry immigrants flooded back into Shenyang because they could not find any work.


title: Zhang Zuolin

text: Zhang provided weapons to anti-Guominjun Muslim rebels led by Ma Tingrang during the Muslim conflict in Gansu (1927–30).


title: Zhang Zuolin

text: In June 1926, Zhang managed to capture Beijing, and rumors swirled that he was planning to proclaim himself emperor. Instead, a year later, with Kuomintang forces rapidly closing in, he combined his military forces with those of the other warlords, including Zhang Zongchang and Sun Chuanfang, into the National Pacification Army and fought against the Northern Expedition. At the same time, he proclaimed himself Generalissimo of the Republic of China, and thus led China's internationally recognized government as a dictator. However, the Nationalists led by Chiang Kai-shek attacked his forces, and in May 1928, the Fengtian Army had to retreat towards Beijing. In addition, Japan applied pressure on Zhang to leave Beijing and to return to Manchuria and underscored that by bringing reinforcements to Tianjin. Zhang left Beijing on 3 June 1928.


title: Zhang Zuolin

text: The next morning, his train reached the outskirts of Shenyang. Here the line passed through the Japanese-operated South Manchuria Railroad. In what came to be known as the Huanggutun incident, Colonel Kōmoto Daisaku, an officer of the Japanese Kwantung Army, planted a bomb along a railroad bridge, which exploded when Zhang's train passed under it; mortally wounded, Zhang died a few hours later. At the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal in 1946, Okada Keisuke testified that Zhang was murdered because the Kwantung Army was infuriated by his failure to stop Chiang's army, which was backed by Moscow, Tokyo's strategic rival. For two weeks, Zhang's death was kept secret while the scramble for power was decided. That is why according to an announcement issued by the Fengtian Army, he officially died on 21 June 1928.


title: Zhang Zuolin

text: Zhang was succeeded, both as warlord of Manchuria and head of the now-exiled Beiyang Government, by his eldest son, Zhang Xueliang, the so-called "Young Marshal". The government-in-exile would not last very long since by July, Beiyang had reached an armistice with the Kuomintang; and by the end of the year, the Northeast Flag Replacement occurred, nominally reunifying China under the Kuomintang banner.


title: Zhang Zuolin

text: Zhang had one wife, five concubines and 14 children (8 sons and 6 daughters), among which include his son and successor, Zhang Xueliang, as well as Zhang Xueming. He was a Buddhist.


title: Zhang Zuolin

text: A pragmatist, Zhang supported different movements depending on what would gain him the most power and legitimacy, and even supported the restoration of the Qing dynasty in 1917. His nicknames include the "Old Marshal" (大帥, P: "Dàshuài", W: "Ta-shuai"), "Rain Marshal" (雨帥, P: "Yǔshuài", W: "Yü-shuai") and "Mukden Tiger". The American press referred to him as "Marshal Chang Tso-lin, Tuchun of Manchuria".


title: Astral Weeks

text: Astral Weeks is the second studio album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison. It was recorded at Century Sound Studios in New York during September and October 1968, and released in November of the same year by Warner Bros. Records.


title: Astral Weeks

text: The album's music blends folk, blues, jazz, and classical styles, signalling a radical departure from the sound of Morrison's previous pop hits, such as "Brown Eyed Girl" (1967). The lyrics and cover art portray the symbolism equating earthly love and heaven that would often feature in the singer's subsequent records. His lyrics have been described as impressionistic, hypnotic, and modernist, while the record has been categorized as a song cycle or concept album.


title: Astral Weeks

text: "Astral Weeks" did not originally receive promotion from Morrison's record label and was not an immediate success with consumers or critics. Its standing eventually improved greatly, with praise given to Morrison's singing, arrangements and songwriting, and the album has been viewed as one of rock music's greatest and most important records (a reputation the singer himself has dismissed). It was placed on numerous widely circulated lists of the best albums of all time and has had an enduring effect on both listeners and musicians.


title: Astral Weeks

text: Forty years after the album's release, Morrison performed all eight of its songs live for the first time at two Hollywood Bowl concerts in November 2008; this performance was later released as "Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl".


title: Astral Weeks

text: At the beginning of 1968, Van Morrison became involved in a contract dispute with Bang Records that kept him away from any recording activity. This occurred after the sudden death of the label's founder Bert Berns. Born with a congenital heart defect, Berns had a fatal heart attack, and was discovered dead in a New York hotel room on 30 December 1967. Prior to Berns's death, he and Morrison had experienced some creative difficulties; Berns had been pushing Morrison in a more pop-oriented direction, while Morrison wanted to explore newer musical terrain. Berns's widow, Ilene Berns, held Morrison and this conflict responsible for her husband's death. Years later she would downplay this scenario, but Morrison's then girlfriend Janet (Planet) Rigsbee has since gone on record describing Ilene Berns's subsequent vindictiveness towards Morrison.


title: Astral Weeks

text: Following Bert Berns's death, Ilene Berns inherited the contracts of Bang Records. Morrison's annual option on his recording contract was also due less than a week after Berns's funeral. Legally bound to Bang Records, Morrison was not only kept out of the studio, but also found himself unable to find performing work in New York as most clubs refrained from booking him, fearing reprisals. (Bert Berns was notorious for his connections to organized crime, and those connections still impacted artists like Morrison and Neil Diamond trying to leave Bang Records, even after Berns's death.) Ilene Berns then discovered that her late husband had previously been remiss in filing the appropriate paperwork to keep Morrison (still a British citizen) in New York, and contacted Immigration and Naturalization Service in an attempt to have Morrison deported. However, Morrison managed to stay in the U.S. when Janet Rigsbee agreed to marry him. Once married, Morrison and Rigsbee moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he found work performing in local clubs. Morrison began performing with a small electric combo doing blues numbers, and songs from "Blowin' Your Mind!" and from Morrison's Them band days. Two of the musicians soon left but Morrison retained the bassist, Tom Kielbania, a student at the Berklee School of Music. Morrison decided to try an acoustic sound, and he and Kielbania began performing shows in coffee houses in the Boston area as an acoustic duo with Morrison playing guitar and Kielbania on upright bass. Before this, Morrison had primarily recorded and performed with electric musicians. The acoustic medium would provide him "greater vocal improvisation and a freer, folkier feel".


title: Astral Weeks

text: Later, Kielbania heard jazz-trained flautist John Payne for the first time while sitting in on a jam session. He invited Payne to the club where he played with Morrison, hoping Morrison would invite him to join them. After allowing Payne to sit in on one performance, Morrison extended an invitation, which Payne accepted. The trio of Payne, Kielbania, and Morrison continued performing for four months. In the weeks they played at the Catacombs, they began to develop the template for "Astral Weeks". It was around this time that Warner Bros. Records approached Morrison, hoping to sign him. Presumably, their interest focused on his prior success with "Brown-Eyed Girl", not on Morrison's current acoustic work. Regardless, their interest allowed Morrison to return to the recording studio.


title: Astral Weeks

text: At the time, Warner Bros. had a deal with Inherit Productions, the production arm of Schwaid-Merenstein, which was founded by manager Bob Schwaid (who worked for Warners Publishing) and producer Lewis Merenstein. Merenstein received a call from Warner Bros. to see Morrison in Boston, and related how eight or nine producers had gone to hear Morrison, thinking they were going to hear "Brown Eyed Girl" only to find that "it was another person with the same voice". Merenstein first heard Morrison play at Ace Recording studio and recalled that when Morrison played the song "Astral Weeks" for him, "I started crying. It just vibrated in my soul, and I knew that I wanted to work with that sound." While Merenstein was visiting Morrison, Schwaid set to work on resolving Morrison's contractual troubles with the help of legendary Warner Bros. executive Joe Smith, who would ultimately sign Morrison to Warner Bros.


title: Astral Weeks

text: Still legally bound to Bang Records, Morrison would yet have more issues with them in the future. For the time being, Schwaid managed to free him from those obligations, under several conditions. First, Morrison had to write and submit to Web IV Music (Bert Berns's publishing company) three original compositions per month over the course of one year. Morrison fulfilled that obligation by recording thirty-six nonsense songs in a single session. Such action risked legal reprisals, but ultimately none transpired. Morrison then had to assign Web IV half of the copyright to any musical composition written and recorded by Morrison "and" released as a single within one year from 12 September 1968. That demand became a moot point when Warner Bros. refrained from releasing any singles during that time, as no single was released from "Astral Weeks". Finally, Morrison had to include two original compositions controlled by Web IV on his next album. Morrison fulfilled that demand with two of his own compositions, "Madame George" and "Beside You", although the versions subsequently released were vastly different musically from the original versions recorded with Bang.


title: Astral Weeks

text: There were still demands that weren't given on paper, which Smith tried to deal with through Don Rickles's manager, Joe Scandore. Scandore, whom Smith described as "connected", set up an unusual arrangement where Smith had to arrive one evening at an abandoned warehouse on 9th Avenue in Manhattan at 6 p.m. with a bag containing $20,000 USD in cash. According to Smith, "I had to walk up three flights of stairs, and they were four guys. Two tall and thin, and two built like buildings. There was no small talk. I got the signed contract and got the hell out of there, because I was afraid somebody would whack me in the head and take back the contract and I'd be out the money." When asked if he ever saw these men again, Smith replied, "No. They weren't in the music business."


title: Astral Weeks

text: With his legal matters resolved, Morrison now had the freedom to proceed with recording his Warner Bros. debut album, with the recording sessions taking place at the Century Sound Studios in New York on 25 September, 1 and 15 October 1968. The live tracks for the sessions were performed by Morrison on vocals and acoustic guitar in a separate vocal booth with the other musicians playing together on upright bass, lead acoustic guitar, vibes, flute, and drums. The strings and horns constituted the only instruments added subsequently to the initial recording sessions. Morrison said later "They ruined it. They added strings. I didn't want the strings. And they sent it to me, it was all changed. That's not 'Astral Weeks'."


title: Astral Weeks

text: Producer Lewis Merenstein had a background in jazz, and according to Merenstein, Morrison "was not an aficionado of jazz when I met him. R&B and soul, yes; but jazz, no." For the "Astral Weeks" recording sessions, Merenstein first contacted veteran bassist Richard Davis. Perhaps best known for his work with Eric Dolphy, Davis essentially served as the session leader, and it was through Davis that Merenstein recruited guitarist Jay Berliner, percussionist Warren Smith Jr., and drummer Connie Kay. All of these musicians had strong backgrounds in jazz; Berliner had worked closely with Charles Mingus and Kay was part of the Modern Jazz Quartet. Morrison was still working with Kielbania and Payne but, for these sessions, they were essentially replaced. According to Kielbania, "I got to show all the bass lines to Richard Davis. He embellished a lot of them, but I gave him the feeling."


title: Astral Weeks

text: Davis proved, perhaps, to be the most pivotal instrumentalist during these sessions. "If you listen to the album, every tune is led by Richard and everybody followed Richard and Van's voice", says Merenstein. "I knew if I brought Richard in, he would put the bottom on to support what Van wanted to do vocally, or acoustically. Then you get Jay playing those beautiful counter-lines to Van." Davis was not impressed by Morrison, not out of disdain or any preconceived notions, but rather because Morrison's professional comportment generally did not meet Davis's expectations. "No prep, no meeting", recalls Davis. "He was remote from us, 'cause he came in and went into a booth ... And that's where he stayed, isolated in a booth. I don't think he ever introduced himself to us, nor we to him ... And he seemed very shy". Drummer Connie Kay later told "Rolling Stone" that he approached Morrison and asked "what he wanted me to play, and he said to play whatever I felt like playing. We more or less sat there and jammed." Morrison's impression of the sessions was "The songs came together very well in the studio. Some of the tracks were first takes. [But] the musicians were really together. Those type of guys play what you're gonna do before you do it, that's how good they are." He told Ritchie Yorke that only two tracks recorded during the sessions did not make it to the album. "One was about Jesse James and the other about trains. They were both just basic blues numbers. That's why they didn't fit in with the album."


title: Astral Weeks

text: For the "Astral Weeks" sessions, apparently they did not employ any lead sheets, or at least none were distributed to the musicians. "What stood out in my mind was the fact that he allowed us to stretch out", recalls Berliner. "We were used to playing to charts, but Van just played us the songs on his guitar and then told us to go ahead and play exactly what we felt." Berliner actually had great appreciation for the freedom given to him and the band; something few, if any, of them were used to. "I played a lot of classical guitar on those sessions and it was very unusual to play classical guitar in that context", says Berliner.


title: Astral Weeks

text: The first session, held in the evening on 25 September 1968, produced four recordings that made it to the album. Only three had initially been intended for inclusion: "Cyprus Avenue", "Madame George", and "Beside You". Although not scheduled to play, Payne still attended the first session and listened as another flautist played his parts. To this day, nobody recalls the name of this flautist, nor has he been identified on any of the surviving documentation; he does play flute on the released takes of "Beside You" and "Cyprus Avenue" but is not included in the album credits. When Morrison tried to squeeze in one last tune during the end of that first session, Payne spoke up and pleaded to Merenstein to permit him to participate. Payne was then allowed to play on what became the title track of the album – "Astral Weeks" – the fourth song produced from this initial session. For the remainder of the sessions, John Payne played on every song.


title: Astral Weeks

text: The next session, according to John Payne, occurred early in the morning, but it did not work and nothing from this session worked for the final album. "It just didn't happen" says Payne. "It was the wrong time of day for jazz musicians to create. I think that by the end of that session we all knew that nothing was going to be used. They just said, let's forget it." Jay Berliner was not available, so Barry Kornfeld was recruited to play lead guitar in his place. According to Merenstein, there was tension at this second session and it was stopped after about three hours. Morrison was quoted by Ritchie Yorke as saying the album was recorded in "two eight-hour sessions, plus two overdub sessions. That was the whole album." In his biography, Clinton Heylin gives the date for the second session as 1 October and states that "Only 'As Young Lovers Do' from this session would make the album" contending that this is the reason for the different "lounge-jazz sound" on this track. Other biographers have primarily noted that the early morning first of October session was abandoned without producing any of the songs on the album.


title: Astral Weeks

text: The third and final session, in the evening on 15 October, produced four more recordings that completed the album — "The Way Young Lovers Do" "Sweet Thing", "Ballerina" and "Slim Slow Slider". Davis expressed to "Rolling Stone" that there was a "certain feel about a seven-to-ten o'clock session" and that "the ambience of that time of day was all through everything we played". Both "Sweet Thing" and "Ballerina" were originally scheduled for the session, but the search for a 'closer' consumed a considerable amount of time. They attempted (and rejected) a number of songs until Morrison suggested "Slim Slow Slider". "I don't think we'd ever done [it] live", recalls Payne. "[Morrison] had a book full of songs ... I don't know why he decided to do it ... And we were first doing it with the drums, with Richard Davis and Connie Kay and the guitar player and the vibe player and me and Van — all of us were playing. Then I started playing soprano sax on the thing, and Lew said, 'OK, I wanna try it again. Start again. And I want just the bass, the soprano sax, and Van. It was a successful take, but it also came with a very long coda, prompting Merenstein to make a large cut during the editing process. Many of the tracks on "Astral Weeks" would be subjected to edits (mainly to tighten the performances), but the one on "Slim Slow Slider" was easily the most substantial. "I would estimate three, five minutes of instrumental stuff", says Payne. "We went through stages [until] we got to be avant-garde kind of weird, which is what you hear after the splice – all that weird stuff we're playing – but there was a whole progression to that." According to Merenstein, before he cut it, the coda "was a long, long ending that went nowhere, that just carried on from minute to minute ... If it had [some] relativity to the tune itself, I would have left it there."


title: Astral Weeks

text: The recording engineer for the album, Brooks Arthur, remembered the sessions in 2009: "A cloud came along, and it was called the Van Morrison sessions. We all hopped upon that cloud, and the cloud took us away , and we made this album, and we landed when it was done." In a "Rolling Stone" interview in 1972, Morrison told John Grissim Jr.: "I was really pretty happy with the album. The only complaint I had was that it was rather rushed. But I thought it was closer to the type of music I wanted to put out. And still is, actually."


title: Astral Weeks

text: "Astral Weeks" has poetic, stream-of-consciousness lyrics that evoke emotions and images instead of coherent, intellectual ideas and narratives. According to Guy Raz from NPR, it is a folk rock album, "perhaps "the" seminal album of the folk-rock genre", while the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame online biography of Morrison said its music is trance-like folk jazz set to "impressionistic, free-flowing" lyrics. AllMusic's William Ruhlmann, on the other hand, viewed the music as an amalgam of folk, blues, jazz, and classical music that is unlike rock.


title: Astral Weeks

text: Although usually described as a song cycle rather than a concept album, the songs do, when considered in their totality, seem to link together as one long song, forming an "intangible narrative of unreachable worlds" and delivered with what one writer calls "a masterpiece of virtuoso singing". According to Charlie Gillett, the album has meditative songs that combine themes of nostalgia, drama, and Morrison's personal mysticism and are performed in a blue-eyed soul style.


title: Astral Weeks

text: The album embraces a form of symbolism that would eventually become a staple of Morrison's songs, equating earthly love and heaven, or as close as a living being can approach it. Morrison and Davis's upright bass can be interpreted as the earth opposing Kay's percussion and the string arrangement representing heaven and with Berliner's lead acoustic guitar residing on a plane in between.


title: Astral Weeks

text: Van Morrison told Ritchie Yorke, one of his biographers, he wrote both of the songs "Madame George" and "Cyprus Avenue" in stream of consciousness: "['Madame George'] just came right out ... The song is just a stream of consciousness thing, as is 'Cyprus Avenue' ...I didn't even think about what I was writing."


title: Astral Weeks

text: In an interview with "Paste" in 2009, Morrison said the songs on "Astral Weeks" were written "prior to 1968 over a period of five years". In an NPR review he comments: "It's not about me. It's totally fictional. It's put together of composites, of conversations I heard—you know, things I saw in movies, newspapers, books, whatever. It comes out as stories. That's it. There's no more."


title: Astral Weeks

text: The song "Astral Weeks" opens the album with the lines "If I ventured in the slipstream, between the viaducts of your dream/ Where immobile steel rims crack, and the ditch in the back roads stop", which according to Erik Hage shows that Morrison had "once and for all pulled neck and neck with Dylan as a lyricist". Morrison described it as "one of those songs where you can see the light at the end of the tunnel ... I don't think I can elaborate on it any more than that." The words in the song: "Talkin' to Huddie Ledbetter/Showin' pictures on the wall" appear to be based on Morrison's real life custom of carrying around a poster of Lead Belly and hanging it on the wall wherever he lived. (This was revealed in a "Rolling Stone" interview in 1978.)


title: Astral Weeks

text: "Beside You", the second song on the album, has been described as "expressionistic poetry and a scattershot collection of images and scenarios". It begins with the classical guitar of Jay Berliner and Morrison's voice circling each other. Morrison described it as "the kind of song that you'd sing to a kid or somebody that you love. It's basically a love song. It's just a song about being spiritually beside somebody." It was originally recorded for Bang Records in December 1967. That first recording shows the pop music intentions of Bert Berns which give it a different sound from the "Astral Weeks" recording.


title: Astral Weeks

text: "Sweet Thing" is the only song on the album to look forward instead of backward. In the words of AllMusic: "Over the endlessly descending, circular progression, Morrison sings positive lyrics about nature and a romantic partner, seemingly beginning in the middle of a thought: 'And I will stroll the merry way. Paul Du Noyer wrote, "Sweet Thing puts the singer in a hazy, pastoral paradise where he wanders in 'gardens wet with rain', or counts the stars in his lover's eyes, and vows to 'never grow so old again' or 'read between the lines'. He pleads with his mind to keep quiet, so his heart can hear itself think. He yearns to obliterate experience and rediscover innocence." It has been a more popular cover song than any of the others on the album and is the only "Astral Weeks" song that has been included in any of Morrison's compilation albums.


title: Astral Weeks

text: The song "Cyprus Avenue" is a three chord blues composition and served for many years as the closing song for most of Morrison's live shows. Along with "Madame George", it is the centerpiece of the album and both songs are Belfast related and highly impressionistic. The song is told from the point of view of an outsider watching from inside an automobile and getting tongue-tied as the refined school girl he fantasizes about appears and he imagines her a fine lady with "rainbow ribbons in her hair" in a carriage drawn by six white horses and "returning from a fair". Van Morrison described Cyprus Avenue as "a street in Belfast, a place where there's a lot of wealth. It wasn't far from where I was brought up and it was a very different scene. To me it was a very mystical place. It was a whole avenue lined with trees and I found it a place where I could think."


title: Astral Weeks

text: "The Way Young Lovers Do" is described by Clinton Heylin as a "lounge-jazz" sound that "still sticks out like Spumante at a champagne buffet". In his review for "Rolling Stone", Greil Marcus also spoke of the song as a "poor jazz-flavored cut that, is uncomfortably out of place on this record". Brian Hinton describes it as there being "a Sinatra strut to Van's voice, a blues knowingness with Stax brass, and a string section which swirls where previously it drifted." He describes it as "about growing up, an adolescent first kiss".


title: Astral Weeks

text: Called the other album masterpiece (along with Cyprus Avenue), "Madame George" is almost ten minutes long and tells of the mysterious madame "in a corner playing dominoes in drag", among other things. It also has a setting of Cyprus Avenue in Belfast with impressionistic lyrics that give stream-of-conscious details that are seemingly unrelated. Erik Hage describes the effect of the sensory experience of the lyrics, the instrumentation and Morrison's impassioned vocals on the listener and the album as being "like some kind of twilight state between sleeping and wakefulness", engaging the listener to project themselves into the spell of the song. "Rolling Stone" album reviewer wrote: "The crowning touch is 'Madame George', a cryptic character study that may or may not be about an aging transvestite but that is certainly as heartbreaking a reverie as you will find in pop music." Morrison has denied that the song is about a transvestite, as others, including Lester Bangs, have believed. The original title of the song is "Madame Joy" and Morrison later changed the title although he actually sings the words "Madame Joy" in the song. An earlier recording for Bang Records with slightly altered lyrics, backing singers, a much swifter tempo and a "bizarrely inappropriate party atmosphere" had a considerably different tone from the 1968 "Astral Weeks" recording.


title: Astral Weeks

text: The oldest composition on "Astral Weeks" is "Ballerina", which Morrison composed in 1966 while still a member of Them, around the same time he first met his future wife, Janet. Inspired by "a flash about an actress in an opera house appearing in a ballet" (according to Morrison), former Them guitarist Jim Armstrong recalls the band working on the song between engagements. "[Morrison] had all these words", Armstrong says, "we sort of formalized it, 'cause there was no structure to it". Them performed the song one night in Hawaii, but it was not recorded until "Astral Weeks". On the full-length version of "Ballerina" which first appeared on the 2015 expanded edition, the left and right audio channels are opposite to those on the originally released edited version.


title: Astral Weeks

text: "Slim Slow Slider" is the only song on the album to not have string overdubs and according to John Payne, Morrison had not played it live before. Like in the song "T.B. Sheets", the singer tells of watching a young girl die, but in "Slim Slow Slider" the girl seems bent on her own self-destruction: "I know you're dying, baby / I know you know it too." The song ends abruptly with the words, "Every time I see you, I just don't know what to do." It has been said to be about a drug addict, but Morrison has only said that it's about someone "who is caught up in a big city like London or maybe is on dope, I'm not sure."


title: Astral Weeks

text: According to Steve Turner, one of Van Morrison's biographers, Irish painter Cecil McCartney influenced the titling of "Astral Weeks". Morrison related how "A friend of mine had drawings in his flat of astral projection. I was at his house when I was working on a song which began, 'If I venture down the slipstream' and that's why I called it 'Astral Weeks'." "It was a painting", McCartney corrects. "There were several paintings in the studio at the time. Van looked at the painting and it suggested astral travelling to him." The album cover photograph of Van Morrison was taken by Joel Brodsky, best known for his "Young Lions" photoshoot with Jim Morrison. The squared circle in the cover photo is described as portraying "the mystic symbol of the union of opposites; the sacred marriage of heaven and earth".


title: Astral Weeks

text: "Astral Weeks" sold poorly when it was first released in 1968. The album became a somewhat popular cult import in the United States, while in the United Kingdom it was largely overlooked by critics. The British magazine "Beat Instrumental" published a negative review of the record, finding Morrison's songs monotonous and unoriginal. In "NME", Nick Logan regarded it as a pale imitation of the guitarist José Feliciano's 1968 "Feliciano!" album, which was one of the year's best-selling records. With the exception of "Astral Weeks" title track, Logan felt the compositions were indistinguishable and "suffer from being stuck in the same groove throughout". In the American magazine "Stereo Review", editor Peter Reilly panned it as a "free-verse mind bender of an album", plagued by nonsensical lyrics and incoherent singing from Morrison, especially on "Madame George".


title: Astral Weeks

text: In 1969, Greil Marcus reviewed the album positively in "Rolling Stone", saying that Morrison's lyrics were thoughtful and deeply intellectual, "in terms of the myths and metaphors that exist within the world of rock and roll". He believed both the music and lyrics captured the spirit of Bob Dylan's 1967 album "John Wesley Harding", while calling "Astral Weeks" a "unique and timeless" record. "Rolling Stone" later named it the album of the year. "Melody Maker" also called it one of the year's best records, featuring Morrison's "small harsh voice" backed by an attractive musical combo that "verges on genius" during "Madame George". When his third album "Moondance" was released in 1970, Warner Bros. ran full-page advertisements remarking on the unavailability of "Astral Weeks" in record stores, calling it a "damn shame" that it "ended up as what you might call a critically acclaimed but obscure album ... If you want it and can't find it, yell at the store's record buyer. Loud, because you're the customer and you're always right. Undo the veils of potential obscurity."


title: Astral Weeks

text: "Astral Weeks" critical standing improved greatly over time. It became viewed as one of rock's greatest records and a culturally significant work. Many factors afforded the record its strong reputation in rock criticism: its back story as a commercial underachiever and highly personal work for Morrison, its distinction from the rest of his discography, his artistic autonomy, the music's song cycle composition, the enigmatic lyrics and quality of seriousness and originality as perceived by mature rock audiences and writers. According to Rob Sheffield, it was Morrison's "most beautiful and intense album", the foundation for his "legend" and a work that continues to captivate musicians and listeners. Lester Bangs said its anguished feeling resonated with him on first listen, calling it "the rock record with the most significance in my life so far ... a record about people stunned by life, completely overwhelmed, stalled in their skins, their ages and selves, paralyzed by the enormity [sic] of what in one moment of vision they can comprehend." Irish musician Glen Hansard said it made him think about life with a greater depth of feeling, "with a greater sense of fear and horror and desire than you ever imagined." Colin Larkin credited Morrison for fully realizing his ambition to "create without pop's constraints" on "Astral Weeks", while AllMusic's William Ruhlmann said its reputation among critics was justified because "unlike any record before or since", it "encompasses the passion and tenderness that have always mixed in the best postwar popular music".


title: Astral Weeks

text: "Astral Weeks" influenced future releases of other musicians such as Bono and Bruce Springsteen. Mike Ragogna with "HuffPost" wrote that "Astral Weeks" influenced Springsteen's 1973 first album "Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J." and two of the songs from his second. Steven Van Zandt, from Springsteen's E Street Band, has said: ""Astral Weeks" was like a religion to us." According to writer Steve Turner, the album also became popular with travelers of the hippie trail, "from Europe through to Kathmandu and there were even reports of vans painted in psychedelic colours being renamed 'the Van Morrison'." In his 1975 book, Ritchie Yorke wrote "It was almost as if Van Morrison, elusive at any time, had deliberately created an album of music which would indefinitely withstand the vulgarity of music industry image-making. Later they might say that other albums were reminiscent of "Astral Weeks", but they could never claim that "Astral Weeks" was like anything else." According to Greil Marcus, Martin Scorsese said that the first fifteen minutes of his 1976 film "Taxi Driver" was based on "Astral Weeks".


title: Astral Weeks

text: The critical recognition and renown of "Astral Weeks" came to overshadow Morrison's subsequent work, as well as Morrison himself. According to biographer Johnny Rogan, his recording career was "all too often crystallized in a single moment. Like the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds", "Astral Weeks" was perceived as a one-off whose critical standing allowed little discussion for other equally fascinating musical forays that followed." Morrison felt annoyed by the retrospective acclaim and claims about the record's significance. In agreement with Logan's original criticism, he later said he should have "changed the arrangements because the arrangements are too samey ... four or five other songs should have had a change of mood." According to Robert Christgau in 1974, ""Astral Weeks" is still considered unlistenable [sic] obscure by many astute observers". Merenstein, on the other hand, still admires the album: "To this day it gives me pain to hear it. Pain is the wrong word—I'm so moved by it." In 2001, the album was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America, having shipped 500,000 copies in the US. Music historian Andrew Ford said the album's commercial performance, much like its musical aesthetic, is similar to classical music: "Neither instant nor evanescent: "Astral Weeks" will sell as many copies this year as it did in 1968 and has every year in between".


title: Astral Weeks

text: "Astral Weeks" has appeared in all-time best album polls worldwide, and according to Acclaimed Music, it is the fifteenth-most ranked record in critics' all-time lists. In 1978, it was voted the fourth best album of all time in Paul Gambaccini's poll of 50 prominent American and English rock critics. It was also ranked second greatest by "Mojo" in 1995, and third by "The Times". In 2003, it was ranked number 19 by "Rolling Stone" on their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, maintaining the rating in a 2012 revision and dropping to number 60 in the 2020 reboot of the list. In 1998, it was voted the ninth greatest album of all time in a "Music of the Millennium" poll conducted by HMV, Channel 4 and "The Guardian". In 2000, "Q" placed the record at number six on its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. "Time" included "Astral Weeks" in its 2006 list of the "All-Time 100 Albums". When "Astral Weeks" was voted the best Irish album of all time in 2009, Niall Stokes wrote in "Hot Press", "It's an extraordinary work, packed with marvelously evocative songs that are rooted in Belfast but which deliver a powerful and lasting universal poetic resonance." The album was also included in the book "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die". It ranked number 16 in the 2000 third edition of Colin Larkin's "All Time Top 1000 Albums".


title: Astral Weeks

text: Marcus referred to the impact of the album, calling it a "common language", and related in a 2009 interview that "I was so shocked when I was teaching a seminar at Princeton just a couple years ago, and out of 16 students, four of them said their favorite album was "Astral Weeks"." Marcus goes on to say, "Now, how did it enter their lives? We're talking about an album that was recorded well before they were born, and yet it spoke to them. They understood its language as soon as they heard it." Elvis Costello described "Astral Weeks" as "still the most adventurous record made in the rock medium, and there hasn't been a record with that amount of daring made since". Johnny Depp, in a "Rolling Stone" interview in 2008, recalled how when he was a preteen his older brother (by ten years), tiring of Johnny's favourite music of the time said, Try this.' And he put on Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks". And it stirred me. I'd never heard anything like it." Joan Armatrading has said that "Astral Weeks" was the first album she purchased as a teenager and that it opened her up musically. In August 2010, director and choreographer, Jessica Wallenfels, staged a production in Portland, Oregon, of a rock opera/story ballet of "Astral Weeks" called "Find me Beside You".


title: Astral Weeks

text: In November 2008, Van Morrison performed two concerts at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California playing the entire "Astral Weeks" album. The band featured Jay Berliner, who played on the original album. Morrison toured performing the album live throughout most of 2009, with "Rolling Stone" calling these concerts "some of the most inspired performances of his whole career".


title: Astral Weeks

text: A live album entitled "Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl" was released by Morrison's record label, Listen to the Lion, on 24 February 2009. It was also issued as a double vinyl LP album released the same date. A DVD featuring the Hollywood Bowl performances and entitled "" was released on 19 May 2009.


title: Astral Weeks

text: When asked by "Rolling Stone" editor David Wild why he was performing the album again live after forty years, Morrison replied: "It received no promotion, from Warner Bros.—that's why I never got to play the songs live. I had always wanted to play the record live and fully orchestrated—"that" is what this is all about. I always like live recording and I like listening to live records too. I'm not too fond of being in a studio—it's too contrived and too confining. I like the freedom of live, in-the-moment sound."


title: Astral Weeks

text: As for the songs on the original album, Morrison told "Los Angeles Times" columnist Randy Lewis: "The songs are poetic stories, so the meaning is the same as always—timeless and unchanging. The songs are works of fiction that will inherently have a different meaning for different people. People take from it whatever their disposition to take from it is."


title: Astral Weeks

text: On 30 October 2015, the album remastered was reissued by Warner Bros. Records with four session bonus tracks, including the full-length versions of both "Ballerina" and "Slim Slow Slider".


United States Air Force Combat Control Teams, singular Combat Controller (CCT) (AFSC 1Z2X1), are an elite American special operations force (specifically known as "special tactics operators") who specialize in all aspects of air-ground communication, including air traffic control, fire support (including fixed and rotary wing close air support), and command, control, and communications in covert, forward, or austere environments.


title: United States Air Force Combat Control Team

text: Assigned to Special Tactics Squadrons and Special Tactics Teams along with Pararescuemen, Special Operations Reconnaissance, and Tactical Air Control Party (TACP) operators, Combat Controllers are an integral part of Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), the Air Force component of United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), and of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Trained in underwater and maritime operations, freefall parachuting, and many other deployment methods, Combat Controllers are often assigned individually or as a team to Army Special Forces, Army Ranger, Navy SEAL, and Delta Force to provide expert airfield seizure, airstrike control, and communications capabilities.


text: Combat Controllers are FAA-certified air traffic controllers and maintain proficiency throughout their career. Along with TACPs, many Combat Controllers also qualify and maintain proficiency as joint terminal attack controllers (JTACs) where they call in and direct air strikes, close air support and fire support. Out of the seven Air Force Crosses awarded since the Global War on Terror started in 2001, five have been awarded to Combat Controllers for extraordinary heroism in combat.


text: CCT's provided vital intelligence and deployed with joint air and ground forces in support of direct action, counter-terrorism, foreign internal defense, humanitarian assistance, special reconnaissance, austere airfield, and combat search and rescue


text: CCT's motto, "First There," reaffirms the Combat Controller's commitment to undertaking the most dangerous missions behind enemy lines by leading the way for other forces to follow.


text: Air Force Special Operations Command's Combat Controllers are battlefield airmen assigned to special tactics squadrons. They are trained special operations forces and certified Federal Aviation Administration air traffic controllers.


text: The mission of a Combat Controller is to deploy undetected into combat and hostile environments to conduct special reconnaissance, establish assault zones or airfields, while simultaneously conducting air traffic control, fire support, command, control, and communications and forward air control. They deploy with air and ground forces in support of direct action, such as counter-terrorism, foreign internal defense, humanitarian assistance, and combat search and rescue. Combat Controllers employ all-terrain vehicles, amphibious vehicles, weapons and demolitions in pursuit of their objectives, which may include obstacle destruction.


text: Combat Controller training, which is nearly two years long, is among the most rigorous in the US military. The CCT pipeline has a wash out rate upwards of 90–95%, mostly due to self-eliminations, injuries sustained during training, and academic failures. The Air Force is working to lower the washout rate through proper education, testing and rigorous pre-pipeline training.


text: Combat Controllers maintain air traffic controller qualification skills throughout their career in addition to other special operations skills. Many qualify and maintain proficiency as joint terminal attack controllers (JTACs). Their 35-week initial training and unique mission skills earn them the right to wear the scarlet beret and their 3 skill level (apprentice). From that point they attend a 12–15-month advanced skill training course to obtain their 5 skill level (journeyman). Once they complete AST their training pipeline is finished and they are mission-ready Combat Controllers.


text: The first course Combat Controller trainees attend after the 8.5-week Basic Military Training Lackland Air Force Base, Texas.


text: Special Warfare Assessment and Selection (SW A&S), Lackland Air Force Base, Texas (4 weeks). – Entire length of the A&S, candidates will be thoroughly evaluated by both the psychologists and cadre in extremely demanding scenarios. A&S is divided into 2 segments: Field Phase and Selection Phase. Field Phase (2.5 weeks): Candidates can expect to be in a field like setting, sleeping in makeshift lodging in cots with sleeping bags. Training is continuous with zero down days, often experiencing continuous sleep deprivation. Training consists of surface swimming, water confidence, Grass & Guerrilla drills, running, rucking, calisthenics, Team events and extended training days (ETD). Selection Phase (1.5 weeks): Following the field phase, candidates will begin clean up of the facilities and will be administered academic and psychological tests, surveys, critiques and interviews. Instructors will compile all relevant information and select only those candidates that meet the desired career field attributes.


text: Special Warfare Pre-Dive (SW Pre-Dive), Lackland Air Force Base, Texas (4 weeks). -This is a course designed to prepare the candidates for Special Warfare Combat Dive school. Candidates will be subjected to more technical and difficult water confidence training. As of mid 2019, this course eliminated up to 30% of the A&S graduates.


text: After the USAF Combat Diver course the trainee attends the Army Airborne School at Fort Benning, Georgia. In the three-week course the trainees learn basic parachuting skills required to infiltrate an objective area by static line airdrop.


text: The next course after Airborne School is the Air Force Basic Survival School located at Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington. SERE School lasts three weeks. The course teaches techniques for survival in remote areas. Instruction includes principles, procedures, equipment and techniques that enable individuals to survive, regardless of climatic conditions or unfriendly environments, and return alive.


text: The next course in the CCT pipeline is the Combat Control Operator Course located at Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi. The Operator course is 15.5 weeks long. The Operator course teaches aircraft recognition and performance, air navigation aids, weather, airport traffic control, flight assistance service, communication procedures, conventional approach control, radar procedures and air traffic rules.


text: The last course in the Combat Control pipeline is the Combat Control School located at Pope Field, North Carolina. The CCT School is thirteen weeks long and it provides the final Combat Controller qualifications. The training includes physical training, small unit tactics, land navigation, communications, assault zones, demolitions, fire support and field operations including parachuting. Graduates of Combat Control school are awarded their 3-skill level (apprentice) on their Air Force Specialty Code, scarlet beret and CCT flash. The Benini Heritage Center Fund Raising effort supports education and training at the Combat Control School.


text: After the Combat Controller gains their three level they attend Special Tactics Advanced Skills Training for 12 to 15 months as part of the Special Tactics Training Squadron located at Hurlburt Field, Florida. Advanced Skills Training is a program for newly assigned Combat Controllers, Pararescuemen and Special Reconnaissance. AST produces mission-ready operators for Air Force Special Operations Command and United States Special Operations Command. The AST schedule is broken down into four phases: water, ground, employment and full mission profile. The course tests the trainee's personal limits through demanding mental and physical training.


text: During Advanced Skills Training Combat Controllers (along with Special Reconnaissance) attend two more advanced courses. Army Military Free Fall Parachutist School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona for five weeks. The course instructs free fall parachuting procedures. It also provides wind tunnel training, in-air instruction focusing on student stability, aerial maneuvers, air sense, parachute opening procedures and parachute canopy control. They also attend Air Force Combat Diver School which is hosted at the Navy Diving and Salvage Training Center, Naval Support Activity Panama City, Florida. Combat Diver School is six weeks long. After completion of Combat Diver School trainees become combat divers, learning to use scuba and closed circuit diving equipment to covertly infiltrate denied areas. The course provides training to depths of 130 feet, stressing development of maximum underwater mobility under various operating conditions. A class of CCTs and PJs at the Air Force Combat Diver School was covered by Discovery Channel's program "Surviving the Cut" during season two, which originally aired 25 July 2011.


text: Once Combat Controllers complete advanced training they are assigned to Special Tactics Squadrons across Air Force Special Operations Command.


text: United States Army pathfinders originated in 1943 during World War II out of need for accurate airdrops after several mishaps occurred in the airborne assault on the Sicilian city of Gela during the allied invasion of Sicily. The 82nd Airborne Division performed a nighttime airborne assault outside of Gela. Due to poor visual references and high winds exceeding two battalions landed 30 miles from their drop zone and a third battalion landed over 55 miles from their drop zone. Undeterred by the flawed airdrop, the paratroopers were still able to hinder the German counterattack to allow for the allies' amphibious assault to gain a foothold on the beach.


text: General James M. Gavin, who was the Deputy Commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, created the Army Pathfinders to ensure airborne operations are more successful in getting the paratroopers at the designated drop zone. These pathfinders preceded main assault forces into objective areas and drop zones in teams to provide weather information and visual guidance to inbound aircraft through the use of high-powered lights, flares and smoke pots, burning buckets of gas-soaked sand and the Eureka beacon. The pathfinder teams consisted of eight to twelve pathfinders along with six soldiers who provided security for the pathfinders while they set up their equipment and aided paratroopers, gliders and planes in reaching their designated drop zones. Pathfinders were first successfully used later in the Sicilian campaign. During the Normandy invasion pathfinders jumped in prior to the main airborne assault force and guided 13,000 paratroopers to their designated drop zones. Pathfinders were used during Operation Market Garden to secure several key bridges required for advancing allied ground units. During the Battle of the Bulge pathfinders enabled an aerial resupply of the 101st Airborne Division.


text: In a history of the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion's wartime actions titled "Stand in the Door! The Wartime History of the 509th Parachute Infantry", authors and 509th veterans Charles H. Doyle and Terrell Stewart provided an alternative history on how the first U.S. Army pathfinder unit was formed.


text: The 509th's Scout Company was the first specialized Pathfinder group. In the U.S. Army, it started the training and experimentation necessary to develop the concept at Oujda. With fragments of practical knowledge from the British Airborne, company commander Captain Howland and his XO 1st Lt. Fred E. Perry worked hard to develop usable techniques. Perry recalls: "Everyone knew through hard experience that the Air Corps needed help to drop us on the correct drop zone. We organized the Scout Company for this purpose. This was later made into a Scout Platoon under my command, consisting of 10 enlisted and myself. We were equipped with a British homing radio and U.S. Navy Aldis lamps, which radiated a beam to guide planes. We trained on this procedure until the invasion at Salerno.


text: In the meantime, the 82d Airborne Division arrived from the States on 10 May and camped near the 509th at Oujda. We were attached to them. The 82d would not buy our Scout Platoon idea, but they sure found out in a hurry after Sicily that we really had something that was needed.


text: At the time, Major General Matthew Ridgway and his "All-American" staff thought they knew it all. Impressed with themselves, although they were not jumpers or experienced glider troopers, they airily dismissed the 509th and its fresh combat experiences, as well as any nonstandard/Limey concept. They would learn the hard way.


text: The pathfinders in the Pacific campaign operated slightly differently than their European pathfinder counterparts and pioneered a number of military "firsts". President Franklin D. Roosevelt, amidst the Quebec Conference in August 1943, was impressed by British General Orde Wingate's account of what could be accomplished in Burma with proper air support. To comply with Roosevelt's proposed air support for British long range penetration operations in Burma, the United States Army Air Forces created the 5318th Air Unit to support the Chindits. In March 1944, they were designated the 1st Air Commando Group by USAF General Hap Arnold. Arnold chose Colonel John R. Alison and Colonel Philip Cochran as co-commanders of the Air Commando Group.


text: In 1944 the strategy decided upon by the allied forces for the Burma Campaign consisted of fortified compounds inside Japanese territory due to increasing large Japanese patrols along the border. This change was in part forced upon them by strengthened Japanese patrols along the Burmese frontier, making a repeat of the successful infiltration in 1943 unlikely. In an imaginative move prompted by Colonel Philip Cochran's assurance that he could transport both troops and supplies by glider, Wingate arranged for the bulk of the force to enter Burma by air, greatly accelerating the force's ability to reach its target objectives. The pathfinders would land in gliders in preselected open fields in Burma, and prepare them for large-scale landings by transport aircraft. The air support provided by Cochran and Alison proved critical to the success of the operation. In three months, 600 sorties by Dakota transport aircraft transferred 9,000 troops, 1,300 pack animals and 245 tons of supplies to landing zones across Burma. Many of the soldiers who would later fight in Operation Thursday. The Air Commandos in Burma would achieve numerous military "firsts" such as; ground forces coordinating air strikes via radio, medevacing wounded by air. When the Burma road was reopened in January 1945 the Air Commandos were inactivated in preparation for the invasion of mainland Japan.


text: The term "Combat Control Team" comes from World War II where allied troop-carrier squadrons developed gliderborne teams called Combat Control Teams. A Combat Control Team consisted of one glider pilot and four enlisted technicians. They utilized a jeep and a trailer-mounted radio to pass critical information to aircraft. The first time they were used was during Operation Varsity in 1945, when two teams with the 18th Airborne Corps infiltrated German lines. They established forward airfields where they supported resupply operations and provided airfield control.


text: When the U.S. Air Force became a separate service in 1947, Air Force pathfinders were assigned to a provisional "Pathfinder Squadron". The Air Force looked for ways to get rid of pathfinders, believing that electronic navigation aids could replace them and the pathfinders role became increasingly neglected by the Air Force. During the Korean War pathfinders were only used in the three main airdrops early in the war. Meanwhile, in Washington D.C. the Air Force and Army leadership were at odds about which service would have ownership of the pathfinder mission. The Department of Defense eventually sided with the Air Force having full control of all air traffic control duties. Despite the resolution the Army never inactivated their pathfinder units which has subsequently become more specialized towards helicopters. After the DOD sided with the Air Force being chosen for the pathfinder mission they expected six teams of pathfinders to be formed from Army-to-Air Force transfers but only got eleven men, enough to form one team. In 1953 the Pathfinder Squadron was discontinued and the pathfinder team was assigned to the 1st Aerial Port Squadron and officially designated a Combat Control Team. The Senior non-commissioned officer of this founding cadre was MSgt "Bull" Benini, he took the lead in establishing the team's new tactics, procedures, organization, and logistics requirements.


text: The Army and Air Force remained at odds regarding pathfinder and CCT roles. In August 1953 the 10th Special Forces Group refused to allow CCTs to join in their joint tactical missions held at Dobbins AFB, Georgia. As a result, Tactical Air Command stopped all Army airlift missions until the Army allowed the CCTs to take part.


text: While the career field was still young and lacking in manpower from so few Army pathfinder transfers, Air Force headquarters solicited from the radio maintenance career field for more Combat Controllers. It was also stipulated that Combat Controllers would have to attend air traffic control school if they would be controlling aircraft from the ground. Because of their job, Combat Controllers had to have either an air traffic control AFSC or a radio maintenance AFSC in addition to jump school to become a Combat Controller. This gave rise to blousing trousers and wearing paratrooper boots, a tradition that still exists to the present.


text: The first time a Combat Control Team was utilized was during the 1958 Lebanon crisis to combat communist expansion and bolster the pro-Western Lebanese government.


text: As tactical air strikes began to be used in Laos during the Vietnam War, it became apparent that, for the safety of noncombatants, some means of control was necessary. Beginning at least as early as July 1964, the absence of a close air support control system caused a variety of enterprising individuals to improvise procedures for marking bombing targets. At various times, ground markers (including bamboo arrows) and dropped smoke grenades were used. While some of these individuals had military training, such as the American Army Attaché, others had little or no specialized training in close air support. They varied in nationality, being Thai, Lao, or Hmong, as well as American. Both Continental Air Services, Inc and Air America pilots would sometimes serve as ad hoc forward air controllers.


text: Later, trained Combat Controllers helped ensure mission safety and expedited air traffic flow during countless airlifts. Combat Controllers also flew as forward air guides in support of indigenous forces in Laos and Cambodia and conducted covert forward air control for U.S. and allied aircraft performing interdiction missions against Communist troops and supplies on the Ho Chi Minh trail.The first combat controller killed in action in SE Asia was TSgt Richard L. Foxx, a seasoned combat controller with more than 15 years experience. On 15 October 1962, Sergeant Foxx was killed while performing Forward Air Control (FAC) duties in a U-10 Helio Courier.


text: Development of rules of engagement by the Embassy also threw more reliance on increased control over the in-country close air support. So did the introduction of an integrated close air support system for Southeast Asia in April 1966. Beginning in April 1966, as part of its effort to better direct air strikes, the U. S. Air Force installed four tactical air navigation systems in Laos to guide U. S. air strikes. One of these was emplaced on a mountain top at Lima Site 85, aimed across the border at Hanoi, and was the site of a desperate battle in 1968.


text: The largest single loss of life during the war was on 4 September 1967. Four Combat Controllers, MSgt Charles A. Paradise, TSgt Frederick L. Thrower, Airman 1st Class Gerard Louis Gauthier Jr, and Airman 1st Class William E Jerkins (all of 8th Aerial Port Squadron Combat Control Team 3) and seven other airmen were killed in action when their C-123 crashed.


text: To begin an operation of great secrecy, the U. S. Air Force originally forwarded four sergeants from Combat Control Teams in 1963. These sergeants turned in their uniforms and military identification and were supplied with false identification so they could work in civilian clothing. This process was designed to preserve the fiction of American non-involvement dubbed plausible deniability. Once "civilianized", the Butterflies flew in the right (co-pilot's) seat in Air America Helio Couriers and Pilatus Porters. They were often accompanied by a Lao or Thai interpreter in the back seat. The Air Commando sergeants directed the air strikes according to U. S. Air Force doctrine, using the radio call sign Butterfly.


text: Two of the Butterfly Air Force combat controllers were Master Sergeant Charles Larimore Jones, soon joined by Technical Sergeant James J. Stanford. Another of the Butterflies was Major John J. Garrity, Jr., who in future would spend several years as the "éminence grise" of the American Embassy to Laos. They, and their successors, ran air strikes without notice or objection until General William Momyer discovered that enlisted men were in charge of air strikes; at that point, he ordered their replacement with rated fighter pilots. By that time, the number of Butterflies had escalated to three pairs. Both the impromptu strike controlling and the Butterfly effort ended with General Momyer's tirade in April 1966.


text: Airman 2nd Class Andre R. Guillet, a "Butterfly" forward air controller, was listed as MIA on 18 May 1966 when the O-1 Bird Dog he and pilot Captain Lee Dufford Harley were in was shot down over Laos.


text: As a result of the Iran hostage crisis, US President Jimmy Carter ordered a rescue mission, code named Operation Eagle Claw, to retrieve the 52 diplomats held captive at the embassy of the United States, Tehran. Three weeks prior to the operation, Air Force CCT Major John T. Carney Jr. was flown in by Twin Otter to Desert One, a staging area in the South Khorasan Province of Iran, near Tabas for a clandestine survey of an airstrip. Despite his two CIA pilots' casual approach to the mission, Carney successfully surveyed the airstrip, installed remotely operated infrared lights and a strobe to outline a landing pattern for pilots, and took soil samples to determine the load-bearing properties of the desert surface. At that time, the floor was hard-packed sand, but in the ensuing three weeks, an ankle-deep layer of powdery sand was deposited by sandstorms. Operation Eagle Claw commenced on 24 April 1980 but encountered many obstacles due to technical issues and weather which led to an accident that killed 8 service members. As a result, the mission aborted. Its failure, and the humiliating public debacle that ensued, damaged US prestige worldwide.


text: Three years later, Carney, now a lieutenant colonel, was again picked for a high-risk, clandestine, special operation mission two days in advance of the US-led invasion of Grenada. Carey was the ranking officer of a team of Air Force Combat Controllers and Navy SEALs tasked with conducting a reconnaissance of a new airport under construction at Point Salines on the southwestern tip of the Eastern Caribbean island. Their shared mission was to determine how the facility was defended and whether the unfinished runway would support the weight of America military transport planes. They would also set up navigation beacons to guide the transports to the target. On 23 Oct. 1983, a nighttime parachute rendezvous of the SEALs with the four controllers waiting aboard the USS Clifton Sprague off the Grenada coast went awry in bad weather. The weather as well as faulty planning, inadequate equipment and training, and bad luck contributed to the drowning deaths of four of the arriving SEALs. The surviving 20-member joint team made two attempts to reach the island by small boat from the Navy frigate over successive nights, but both attempts were thwarted by more bad weather, bad luck, and equipment problems. The pre-invasion reconnaissance was eventually conducted by an Air Force AC-130 from the air instead.


text: On D-Day, 25 October 1983, other Combat Controllers jumped into Point Salines at the start of Operation Urgent Fury. They were key to opening the airway for 1st Battalion & 2nd Battalion, 75th Rangers to take the unfinished airport.


text: In 2004 Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated "some 85 percent of the air strikes in Operation Enduring Freedom were called in by Air Force Combat Controllers." Combat Controllers have received three of the five awarded Air Force Crosses since the Global War on Terror started in 2001; all three occurred while supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.


text: On 6 October 2009 12 Combat Controllers and Pararescuemen began an 812-mile trek across the Southern U.S. called the Tim Davis/Special Tactics Memorial March. The march was in remembrance of Special Tactics airmen who lost their lives since the Global War on Terror began and to increase awareness about the Special Operations Warrior Foundation which funds the education of surviving children of Special Operations personnel who are killed in action or training. The march began at the Medina annex on Lackland Air Force Base, Texas where the Combat Control career field begins and finished at Hurlburt Field, Florida where they graduate from Advanced Skills Training and become full-fledged Combat Controllers. The airmen marched in two-man teams for 24 hours each carrying 50 lb ruck sacks. The march was completed just ten days later.


text: As part of Operation Unified Response, within 24 hours of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, a team of Combat Controllers from the 23rd Special Tactics Squadron stationed at Hurlburt Field, Florida arrived at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. 28 minutes after arriving, the Combat Controllers assumed authority of air traffic control duties to allow planes carrying humanitarian aid to land safely. The Combat Controllers directed over 2,500 flights without incident from a card table using only hand radios. Under their direction planes were able to take off and land every five minutes, bringing in over 4 million pounds of supplies. As a result of their efforts, the team leader of the Combat Controllers, Chief Master Sergeant Tony Travis, was later recognized as one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people of 2010.


text: Again in late 2011, 18 CCTs and PJs made the trek from Lackland AFB to Hurlburt Field after losing three airman when their Chinook was shot down in 2011. The airmen walked for 24 hours at a time in three person groups each carrying 50 lb ruck sacks; by the end of the trip the average airman had marched 144 miles.


text: In June 2014, Combat Controllers were deployed to Iraq as part of the contingent of U.S. military advisors ordered to the country by President Barack Obama in the military effort against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.


text: Former commander of United States Special Operations Command, General Bryan D. Brown, commented on Combat Controllers in a May 2011 interview with the publication, "The Year in Special Operations 2011-2012 Edition", stating: "During this kind of warfare [Global War on Terror] the USAF combat controller [CCT/TAC-P] guys really carried an incredible load. During the opening days in Afghanistan, we deployed some SF teams without a CCT, and the difference between those that had controllers and those that didn't was dramatic. Quite frankly no one wants to go to war without them. They are admired, capable, and requested at a rate far greater than we could ever provide. Their efforts were critical in the early days of OEF and still are. Here is another force [whose] true impact on the battlefields around the world will never be known or appreciated. They are absolutely phenomenal."


text: In the "Transformers" film franchise Tyrese Gibson plays a U.S. Air Force Combat Controller named Robert Epps. To play his part he was coached by Master Sergeant Ray Bolinger, a Combat Controller from the 22nd Special Tactics Squadron.


text: A class consisting of CCTs and PJs at the Air Force Combat Diver School was covered by Discovery Channel's program "Surviving the Cut" during season two, which originally aired 25 July 2011.


text: In 2012 "Men's Health" magazine featured an article titled "The Special Operators you've never heard of" where the author commented on the lack of public knowledge regarding Combat Controllers, "Let us face reality: the Navy SEALs get all the ink, the Army Rangers all the glory, the Marine Recons all the babes. Conversely, to the average guy on the street the mention of U.S. Air Force Special Operators inevitably elicits a look of bewilderment. "The Air Force has those guys?""


text: In author Marko Kloos' "Frontlines" series of military science fiction books, the protagonist is a combat controller specializing in providing ground troops with space-based air support.


title: Art of Noise

text: Art of Noise (also The Art of Noise) were an English avant-garde synth-pop group formed in early 1983 by engineer/producer Gary Langan and programmer J. J. Jeczalik, along with keyboardist/arranger Anne Dudley, producer Trevor Horn, and music journalist Paul Morley. The group had international Top 20 hits with its interpretations of "Kiss", featuring Tom Jones, and the instrumental "Peter Gunn", which won a 1986 Grammy Award.


title: Art of Noise

text: The group's mostly instrumental compositions were novel melodic sound collages based on digital sampler technology, which was new at the time. Inspired by turn-of-the-20th-century revolutions in music, the Art of Noise were initially packaged as a faceless anti- or non-group, blurring the distinction between the art and its creators. The band is noted for innovative use of electronics and computers in pop music and particularly for innovative use of sampling.


title: Art of Noise

text: The technological impetus for the Art of Noise was the advent of the Fairlight CMI sampler, an electronic musical instrument invented in Australia. With the Fairlight, short digital sound recordings called samples could be "played" using a piano-like keyboard, while a computer processor altered such characteristics as pitch and timbre. Music producer Trevor Horn was among the first people to purchase a Fairlight. While some musicians were using samples as adornment in their works, Horn and his colleagues saw the potential to craft entire compositions with the sampler, disrupting the traditional rock aesthetic. (Others were also working contemporaneously toward this goal, such as Jean-Michel Jarre, Yello, and Tony Mansfield, who had made extensive use of the Fairlight for the eponymous debut album by Naked Eyes, while Yellow Magic Orchestra had extensively used sampling on their 1981 album "Technodelic").


title: Art of Noise

text: In 1981, Horn's production team included programmer J. J. Jeczalik, engineer Gary Langan and keyboard player/string arranger Anne Dudley. The team produced ABC's 1982 debut album "The Lexicon of Love", increasingly using the Fairlight to tweak live-based elements of performance but also to embellish the compositions with sound effects such as a cash register's bell on "Date Stamp" (Dudley also co-wrote a track on the album, which launched her scoring career). The team also worked on Malcolm McLaren's 1982 album "Duck Rock" and would go on to work with Frankie Goes to Hollywood on what would become the album "Welcome to the Pleasuredome" (realised predominantly on Fairlight).


title: Art of Noise

text: During January 1983, Horn's team were working on the Yes comeback album "90125" – Horn as producer, Langan as engineer, and Dudley and Jeczalik providing arrangements and keyboard programming. During the sessions, Jeczalik and Langan took a scrapped Alan White drum riff and sampled it into the Fairlight using the device's Page R sequencer (the first time an entire drum pattern had been sampled into the machine). Jeczalik and Langan then added non-musical sounds on top of it, before playing the track to Horn. This in turn resulted in the Red & Blue Mix of Yes's "Owner of a Lonely Heart" single, which showcased the prototype sound of The Art of Noise.


title: Art of Noise

text: Seeing further potential in the idea, Horn teamed Jeczalik and Langan with Dudley in February to develop the project and brought in one of his business partners, ex-NME journalist Paul Morley, as a provider of concepts, art direction and marketing ideas. Morley came up with the project name (taken from the essay "The Art of Noises" by noted futurist Luigi Russolo, and finalised at Jeczalik's request by dropping the final 's'). Much later, in a July 2002 article penned for "The Guardian", Morley wrote "I loved the name Art of Noise so much that I forced my way into the group. If over the years people asked me what I did in the group, I replied that I named them, and it was such a great name, that was enough to justify my role. I was the Ringo Starr of Art of Noise. I made the tea. Oh, and I wrote the lyrics to one of the loveliest pieces of pop music ever, Moments in Love." Horn himself joined the new group as production advisor and provider of further ideas. This was the first time that he had been part of a group since parting company with his The Buggles' partner Geoff Downes (after they had been part of Yes). It would also be the first and last time that he would enjoy chart success as an artist since the new wave hit in 1979 with "Video Killed the Radio Star" (not counting writing credits on The Dollar Album).


title: Art of Noise

text: The debut Art of Noise EP, "Into Battle with the Art of Noise", appeared in September 1983 on Horn's fledgling ZTT label. Many of the samples originally used on "90125" reappeared on the EP, which immediately scored a hit in the urban and alternative dance charts in the US with the highly percussive, cut-up instrumental track "Beat Box", a favourite among body-poppers. The track has often been mistakenly credited by some to be the theme tune for the ITV game show "The Krypton Factor". "(Theme From) The Krypton Factor" was actually composed and recorded in 1986 and was reworked as "Crusoe" on their 1987 album.


title: Art of Noise

text: The first Art of Noise album, "Who's Afraid of the Art of Noise?" was released in 1984. During this period, the group presented themselves as faceless (using masks, minimal personal appearances, or even absence from promotion to indicate that the Art of Noise was not a standard rock or pop band which promoted and mythologised its members as individuals).


title: Art of Noise

text: "Moments in Love", a ten-minute instrumental ode to sensuality that appeared on both "Into Battle" and "Who's Afraid," was remixed and released as a single in 1985. The song was first released in the US in 1983, where it was a moderate hit on the US R&B singles chart. It was played at one of Madonna's weddings; sampled by Mýa in her hit single "It's All About Me," which featured Sisqó; used in the soundtrack of the movie ""; featured in the Indian movie "Koi...Mil Gaya"; name-dropped in the opening pages of Sister Souljah's 2011 novel "Midnight and the Meaning of Love" (as "Moments of Love"); interpolated in King Sun’s song “Hey, Love”; used in a number of advertisements; and remixed, covered, and sampled by numerous other artists. It has also appeared in numerous chill out compilations and has become a staple of smooth jazz radio station playlists. "Moments in Love" has been remixed many times, with names such as "Moments in Bed" and "Moments in love 7" Master Rejected". Most "Moments in Love" remixes can be found in the box set "And What Have You Done with My Body, God?"


title: Art of Noise

text: An October 1984 feature in "Smash Hits" magazine indicated several of Morley and Horn's plans for the group's subsequent projects. These included a cover of "Video Killed the Radio Star", originally by The Buggles (Horn and Geoff Downes); "Raiding the 20th Century", an album using sounds from throughout the 20th century as source material; the score for "The Living End", a film written by Morley and directed by Godley & Creme; and the soundtrack for a ballet.


title: Art of Noise

text: "Close (to the Edit)" was issued in October that year. The single was Art of Noise's first major UK hit, reaching number eight in the UK Singles Chart in November 1984.


title: Art of Noise

text: In 1985, Dudley, Jeczalik, and Langan made an acrimonious split from Morley and Horn as well as from the ZTT label.


title: Art of Noise

text: In a post-split interview for "Melody Maker" in October 1985, Jeczalik indicated that he and Morley did not get along and that he felt Morley's writing was pretentious. Jeczalik responded to a question about the level of Morley and Horn's involvement in "Who's Afraid" by saying, "It's difficult to tell. We say approximately 1.73 percent, but it could even be as high as two percent. You see, all that has happened is that Gary and I started something, it was taken away, and we have taken steps to get it back." In the same interview, Dudley indicated she felt parts of "Who's Afraid" were of dubious quality.


title: Art of Noise

text: Much later, Morley would comment "When Trevor and I left, (Jeczalik, Langan and Dudley) became a novelty group who had hits with Tom Jones." His disdain for the artistic direction of The Art of Noise once he was no longer involved with it was even more evident in other articles he penned, including the liner notes of the 1986 compilation album "Daft" (under the name Otto Flake) and a September 2002 article for "The Observer".


title: Art of Noise

text: After the split, Dudley, Jeczalik, and Langan moved to the UK-based China Records label, taking the Art of Noise name with them. Some of the band's original imagery and ethos was retained for their second album, "In Visible Silence". This album spawned the Grammy Award-winning cover of the "Peter Gunn" theme, recorded with Duane Eddy, who had a hit with "Peter Gunn" in 1959. The Art of Noise collaboration reached number two on the Billboard dance charts. The "Peter Gunn" video featured comedian Rik Mayall in a parody of the private eye film genre. The piece would later be used as the theme music for the 2008 BBC TV series "Bill Oddie's Wild Side".


title: Art of Noise

text: From the same album, the "Beat Box"-like single "Legs" (using the same drum sounds) was a mild underground hit in dance clubs. In 1986, the album track "Paranoimia" achieved some success when a remix of it was released as a single with overdubbed vocal samples provided by Matt Frewer as the supposedly computer-generated character Max Headroom. Frewer also appeared as Max Headroom in the music video for the track.


title: Art of Noise

text: Around 1986, Jeczalik and Dudley started appearing in photographs without masks, alienating some fans that had come to appreciate Morley's "art for art's sake" aesthetic. The upcoming soundtrack pieces continued The Art of Noise's evolution into a pop band and away from Morley's faceless "non-group."


title: Art of Noise

text: By 1987, the band's membership was down to just Jeczalik and Dudley. That year saw the release of their album "In No Sense? Nonsense!"  The album featured Jeczalik's most advanced rhythmic collages to date, plus lush string arrangements, pieces for boys' choir, and keyboard melodies from Dudley. It did not produce any hits, although their record label made efforts to push remixes of "Dragnet" into the dance clubs and the single reached No. 60 on the UK Singles Chart.


title: Art of Noise

text: In 1987, The Art of Noise provided the score for two movies, "Hiding Out" and "Dragnet", and one particular movement was used in both films. Their brass-based connecting passage between sections from the original Dragnet television show's theme song was used as incidental music during a dramatic scene—an armed chase through the rafters of a gymnasium—near the end of "Hiding Out".


title: Art of Noise

text: In 1988, a one-off collaboration with singer Tom Jones (a cover of Prince's "Kiss" — a staple in Jones' stage shows) renewed the public's interest in the Art of Noise and provided the group's biggest hit in the mainstream. The track appeared on several albums by Jones, and China Records included the song on the greatest hits compilation "The Best of The Art of Noise", the first edition of which also contained tracks licensed from ZTT.


title: Art of Noise

text: The follow-up album, "Below the Waste", failed to achieve much success upon its release in 1989. It did spawn the memorable single "Yebo!" (featuring the unique vocals of Zulu performers Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens). Both cassette and CD versions include two bonus tracks in the form of "Robinson Crusoe", and the "James Bond Theme".


title: Art of Noise

text: Although Dudley and Jeczalik had already dissolved the group, in 1990 they assisted in the promotion of the lightly remixed compilation "The Ambient Collection", which the China label released to cash in on the burgeoning ambient house scene. Jeczalik approved the remixes that appeared on "The FON Mixes" the following year. The rest of the decade saw China Records releasing further Art of Noise compilations: "The Drum and Bass Collection", "Art Works", and reissues of "Best of" without the ZTT-era tracks. Some of these featured new remixes by other artists.


title: Art of Noise

text: According to an interview with J.J. Jeczalik reported in the ZTT fanzine "Outside World" in 1991, Jeczalik, Dudley and Langan were inspired by the commercial success of "The FON Mixes" and had discussed reuniting the group as a trio again. In preparation to record a new album, Jeczalik and Langan travelled to Cuba to gather new source material. However, no new recordings were produced with the new line-up, and the Art of Noise remained defunct.


title: Art of Noise

text: Dudley became well known for composing numerous film and television scores during the 1990s. The most famous of these is probably "The Full Monty", which won an Academy Award for Original Music Score. She also collaborated with Killing Joke's Jaz Coleman on the 1990 album "Songs from the Victorious City" (inspired by a trip the two made to Egypt) and produced two tracks for the 1993 Deborah Harry album "Debravation" ("Strike Me Pink", which she also co-wrote and played keyboards on, and "Mood Ring"). She has scored orchestrations for dozens of pop releases over the years, and both scored and produced the album "Voice" for her neighbour Alison Moyet. Cathy Dennis added lyrics to one of Dudley's compositions and recorded it as "Too Many Walls", which became a US Top 10 hit in 1991.


title: Art of Noise

text: In 1995–1997, Jeczalik and "In No Sense? Nonsense!" coengineer Bob Kraushaar produced a number of instrumentals oriented toward dance clubs under the name Art of Silence, issuing an album titled "artofsilence.co.uk". Jeczalik also embarked on a new career in trading in futures contracts.


title: Art of Noise

text: The Art of Noise also received a full writing credit for The Prodigy's "Firestarter", which samples the female "hey, hey" voice from "Close to the Edit". The Prodigy also contributed the remix "Instruments of Darkness (All of Us are One People)" to the 1991 compilation "The FON Mixes". Also, an edited version of "Close to the Edit" is featured on the monthly educational Amiga game "Ready Robot Club". The Art of Noise are also credited for the music to the ITV series "The Krypton Factor".


title: Art of Noise

text: In 1998, Horn, Morley, and Dudley began talking about the original intent of the project, its relevance in 20th-century music, and the impending turn of a new century. The group temporarily reformed, adding guitarist Lol Creme, but without J.J. Jeczalik and Gary Langan. Their engineering, programming and production tasks were carried out by dance act Way Out West. An album was recorded – "Balance – Music for the Eye" – but was never released, although several tracks from this project were included on the 2010 retrospective album "Influence". and the whole album was released as part of "At the End of the Century" box set. Instead, a new single called "Dream On" — which featured remixed versions of the forthcoming album track "Dreaming in Colour" — was released to club DJs later in 1998, showcasing mixes by Way Out West.


title: Art of Noise

text: A second single, "Metaforce", featuring a rap by Rakim, preceded the 1999 release of the concept album "The Seduction of Claude Debussy", a cohesive concept album depicting the life and works of Claude Debussy, on the ZTT label.


title: Art of Noise

text: This album later formed the basis of a 17-minute soundtrack for London's Millennium fireworks celebrations on the banks of the River Thames. The firework display was synchronised to an edit of "Seduction" which also featured a collage of samples from some of Britain's most famous pop and rock songs, plus classical composers. It was broadcast live on 95.8 Capital FM and BBC London 94.9. Trevor Horn worked on the project with Jill Sinclair, Bob Geldof, Capital Radio executive Clive Dickens and producer Ross Ford.


title: Art of Noise

text: After performing a handful of live shows in the UK and US, the band dissolved. A DVD ("Into Vision") and CD ("Reconstructed") were released in 2002 and 2003 respectively, featuring music recorded and filmed in Chicago, at the Coachella Festival (10 September 1999), at the Shepherd's Bush Empire (22 March 2000) and Fountain Studios, Wembley, London (1 June 2000).