Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Date:         Wed, 16 Dec 1992 13:45:25 EST
From:         Ken Koester <MAINT2@ERS.BITNET>
Subject: The Day the Music Died (V): What a Man of 40 Listens to These
              Day s

So there I was, in the very emporium in which Hoagy Carmichael composed
"Stardust" (or was it?  The emporiums on that corner have swapped names and
stores so much I can't remember if I was in the same-named store, or the same
location, different name.  I was close, wherever I was.), looking over the
SF when the music I had been waiting for all my life started to play:  it was
improvisatory, it was jazzy, it was bluegrass, it was rock, it was everything
and nothing like anything all at the same time & I didn't move a muscle until
the store finished playing side one and flipped the disk & hit me with some
real down and dirty mandolin/violin, stuff getting tenser and tenser and to
a peak then exploding over the edge like a runaway freight train on the move--
Yeah.  That was it, all right.  And once I saw what the album was, I hurried
3 doors over to the local record store, rummaged through the racks until I
found a copy, shelled out the bucks, almost ran out the door, got back to the
house, ripped off the shrink wrap. . . and stared at it for awhile.  Because
in all the hurly burly, it hadn't occurred to me until just then that I didn't
have a turntable to spin this baby on.  And I wasn't going to hear those
mondo mando sounds any time soon, boys and girls, no sir no way no how.

Of course, that is what friends are for, and I did have one or two, so I did
get to play the album through, twice, not too long after the buy.  It was
=The Dave Grisman Quintet=, and like I said, there were riffs copped from all
over.  The line notes said they took to calling it Dawg music, and that was
fine by me, except no record store had a Dawg collection, so I took to rooting
through the bluegrass, jazz, and folk sections in turn until I could locate
the latest disk.  Sometimes it would be in all three sections at the same time.

As time passed, Grisman's sidemen drifted off, formed their own bands, moved
the music a different way.  Then there were the guys that all these guys would
play with, so that was another vein to mine.  Then there were even the guys
that played on the same label as Grisman & crew.  So there was a small but tidy
little pocket of music out there to get down with; that's how I discovered
Bela & the 'Tones, for example, and of course, Django himself and Stephan,
and so on.  And then there were gigs all through the '80s--and the bands
*always* looked like they were enjoying the hell out of the music, the people,
and everything else, as if if was just plum ungodly to be having so much fun
& be *paid* for it.

So the New Acoustic Music (my name) filled a void that classical and early
music hadn't quite managed & filled it very well.  I suppose it isn't really
new any more, but I like it just fine.

Early Music:
At first, it was Baroque alone.  My ears refused to handle Renaissance and
Medieval music; they couldn't find anything to grab onto.  But along about the
time I fell for the opera singer, I decided it was high time I learned to play
an instrument; the recorder looked easiest to master & besides, I could maybe
someday play all that Baroque stuff I'd been hording, so I picked that.  But
if you are going to play the recorder with other people, sooner or later you
are going to discover the Renaissance; it happened when I stumbled upon Morley
canzonets, and joined the local recorder society.  Once you do, your musical
horizons expand enormously.  Renaissance music is technically easy,
rhythmically tricky, constant interplay of duple against triple meter.  So it
gets a hell of a lot of energy built into it, even without looking at the
dance pieces.  And once you discover antiphonal music, maybe with a lot of
brass. . . !  So make mine Morley, Byrd, Gibbons, Tallis, Isaac, Dufay, Certon,
Sermisy, with a dash of Josquin & diLasso on the side, and a big helping of
Gabrieli on top; don't forget the Praetorius, Gervaise, Attaingnant, Phalese,
and Arbeau.  Oh, and you can wash it down with Willaert, or ease it down with
Encina, or down it with Diaz or Ortiz.  You can do it with lute, or viol, or
sackbut, cornamuse, sordune, crumhorn, dulcian, doucaine, shawm, bombarde,
hurdi-gurdi, portative, positive, regal, virginal, clavi- or harpsi-, naker,
tabor, doumbek, rebec, vielle, kamenj, cornetto, clarino, serpent, or recorder.
Just don't make a rackett (-:

And when you've done all that, it's time to discover medieval music, where the
thirds are dissonant, but the seconds aren't, and the fourth is the
characteristic sound, the polyphony is tentative, there are no keys, only
modes, and Anon is my favorite composer.

Other Music:
Jazz.  Sure, why not?  Not as much as the above, but gimme a break; there's
only 24 hours in the day.  Folk?  Sure.  Recorders go well with folk.  Opera?
See the above, re: the opera singer.  What do you think?  Bossa nova?
Big Band?  You got it.  The only things I don't listen to are things I don't
like, and I don't know whether or not I like them until I listen to them.

And that pretty much is the story of the day the music died and the day it
was reborn.  30, you newshounds.
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