composers-from-the-united-states

"Comin' in on a wing and a pray'r Comin' in on a wing and a pray'r Tho' there's one motor gone, We can still carry on, Comin' in on a wing and a pray'r. What a show what a fight Yes, we really hit our target for tonight How we sing as we limp thru the air Look below, there's our field over there With our full crew aboard And our trust in the Lord We're comin' in on a wing and a pray'r."

"Very often the things that we consider to be new are not new. They're just new combinations or reanimations and reimaginations of things that have already been done, put together in a different way."

"Being curious is an absolute rule of life. If you don’t have that, I don’t know what you're doing in this music."

"You must remember that it was a different time...It was before everyone was looking into their smartphones. There were computers but it wasn't such a dominant vibe in the air. People talked to each other, met in bars, and went out to hear music...In Greenwich Village...there were at least six clubs within a few walking minutes...Around that time there were at least 10 functioning clubs just in Manhattan, not even counting Brooklyn, that featured music seven nights a week...People would go out to the the clubs, not just musicians. There was a real sense of community...We were very lucky to live in this time."

"Even while I was studying at [Manhattan School of Music], I was learning about melody and rhythm, and theory, and harmony, and all the great composers like Scriabin, Khatchaturian, Shostakovich, and Prokofiev...Bach and Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Schoenberg, Alan Berg...Boulez, Stockhausen...We would listen, for example, to Ravel's Piano Concerto in G, or a Bach Cantata or the Prelude and Fugue, and so on. And then the teacher, Ludmila Ulehla, picked the essential 20 composers in music history, from...Mozart...and so on, up through...Debussy, Scriabin...and Stockhousen...Eventually, my goal became to put all that I had absorbed from these studies into jazz, into, say, "Stella By Starlight," to integrate the harmony, the melodic ideas, and so on. I continued doing that for about twenty years afterwards. I spent hours and hours at the piano, sleeping as little [as] three hours a night. But I loved it, so it wasn't arduous work."

"The most complete knowledge of tonal material cannot create a composer any more than the memorizing of Webster's dictionary can produce a dramatist or poet. Music is, or should be, a means of communication, a vehicle for the expression of the inspiration of the composer. Without that inspiration, without the need to communicate, without— in other words— the creative spirit itself, the greatest knowledge will avail nothing."

"My music springs from the soil of the American midwest. It is music of the plains rather than of the city and reflects, I believe, something of the broad prairies of my native Nebraska.""

"To the artist, to the musician, is given the task of creating and expressing beauty--of sensitizing the souls of men."

"The artistic contribution of any nation and any age must be in terms of creation. Performers, symphony organizations, opera houses, museums, libraries - important as they are - are not enough. The arts, if they are to live, must be living arts."

"As a music theorist, I have always contended that the historical approach to music theory is not enough. The modern theorist should, of course, be able to analyze the music of the masters, to explain (as much as possible) the sources of their musical language. They should also, however, be able to suggest new paths, new theories, including those that break with creative and scholarly tradition....This attitude has puzzled some of my academic colleagues, since I am in my own composition essentially a traditionalist. I do not believe that this is a contradiction or an inconsistency."

"In music, the great essential after creation itself is communication through performance...it is of immediate and primary importance to the creator. For the composer, if he is to develop, must hear his own works. An orchestra composer without an orchestra is like a scientist without his laboratory or a dramatist without his stage or actors."

"To all the starry host of Heaven they cried, But had no radio and of course they died."

"To You, oh, Goddess of Efficiency, Your happy vassals bend the reverent knee, Save when arthritis, your benighted foe, Sulks in the bones and sourly mumbles "No!""

"Blessings love disguise."

"Little by little we subtract Faith and Fallacy from Fact, The Illusory from the True, And starve upon the Residue."

"The heart’s dead Are never buried."

"Babies haven’t any hair; Old men’s heads are just as bare;— Between the cradle and the grave Lies a haircut and a shave."

"I burned my candle at both ends, And now have neither foes nor friends."

"The countless cousins of the Czar, Grand Duke or Duchess, every one, As multitudinous as are The spheres (who borrow from the sun)."

"Smelling like a municipal budget."

"The head that wears a crown may be Inclined to some anxiety, But, on the other hand, I know A derby domes its meed of woe."

"My soul is dark with stormy riot, Directly traceable to diet."

"If you love me, as I love you, We'll both be friendly and untrue."

"Your little voice, So soft and kind; Your little soul, Your little mind!"

"Which six of the seven cities that claimed Homer were liars?"

"Breathes there a man with hide so tough Who says two sexes aren’t enough?"

"Four of us together dwell— Two from Heaven and two from Hell; Four of us under the selfsame sky— Love and Death and a Dream and I."

"When the wind is in the tree, It makes a noise just like the sea, As if there were not noise enough To bother one, without that stuff."

"Loyal be to loyal friends; Make them pay you dividends; Work, like the industrious bee, Your friends and foes impartially."

"The dead they sleep a long, long sleep; The dead they rest, and their rest is deep; The dead have peace, but the living weep."

"When trouble drives me into rhyme, Which is two-thirds of all the time, What peace a thought like this can give— Great is the age in which we live!"

"You buy some flowers for your table; You tend them tenderly as you’re able; You fetch them water from hither and thither— What thanks do you get for it all? They wither."

"Oh, how various is the scene Allowed to Man for his demesne!"

"Some folks I know are always worried, That when they die, they will be buried; And some I know are quite elated Because they’re going to be cremated."

"The stars, like measles, fade at last."

"I play with the bulls and the bears; I’m the Bartlett of market quotations."

"The apple grows so bright and high, And ends its days in apple pie."

"Of all the birds that sing and fly Between the housetops and the sky, The muddy sparrow, mean and small, I like, by far, the best of all."

"When you’re away, I’m restless, lonely, Wretched, bored, dejected; only Here’s the rub, my darling dear, I feel the same when you are here."

"I’d rather listen to a flute In Gotham, than a band in Butte."

"Dave Brubeck was incredibly well known for most of his career. His early success with college audiences – the Brubeck Quartet virtually invented the campus circuit – catapulted him on to the cover of Time magazine in 1954. In 1960 his star status increased with the album Time Out. Brubeck’s mixture of asymmetrical rhythms and catchy tunes won international renown, though the disc’s biggest hit, the sinuous ‘Take Five’, was written by the quartet’s alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, with some structural advice from his boss. But, as all too often in jazz, popular celebrity inspired critical condescension. He was slated for his ‘academic’ approach – he had studied with Darius Milhaud, classical composer and member of the French collective Les Six – his use of such classical devices as counterpoint and polytonality, his sometimes thunderous keyboard attack and disinclination to swing in a conventional manner. Critics damned his lyricism with faint praise and dismissed him from the jazz tradition. However, over the years, as the idea of a monolithic tradition has become suspect, Brubeck has come to be seen as a remarkable, original talent. Far from being some kind of uptight academic, he had trouble reading music and was one of the most purely intuitive pianists jazz has produced. His style was founded completely on a commitment to musical expression, fuelled by a belief that, as he once put it, ‘jazz should have the right to take big chances’ – even going beyond what has been considered jazz."

"Wayne Shorter, who turns eighty this month, and Sonny Rollins are two of the finest saxophonists living today."

"Some folks thought Rahsaan Roland Kirk's playing multiple horns at once was a gimmick. Granted, the guy looked like a madman with all sorts of woodwinds strapped around him, with maybe a tenor sax or manzello and stritch (both obscure saxophones) in his mouth at the same time, but Kirk was a hell of an improviser, often harmonizing with himself. There's a live recording of Kirk playing "Sentimental Journey" on one horn and Dvorak's "New World Symphony" on the other, and Kirk said it's splitting the mind into two parts. "It's like making one part of your mind say, 'Ob-la-di' and make the other part of your mind say 'What does it mean'?" Not only was Kirk a damn fine saxophonist but his flute playing, while scatting, heavily influenced Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull."

"Louis and Bebe Barron [...] developed the ‘tonalities’ — the accompaniment of interstellar gulps and burbles — that take the place of a musical score."

"While Stanley Clarke is both a master of the double bass and electric bass, and a dynamic visionary on both instruments, he's also an accomplished composer, as evidenced by many of his solo discs, the groove-heave 1976 release, School Days, as well as his film scores. Clarke is clearly a master of jazz-rock fusion, especially during his time with Return to Forever, but he can lay down a funk groove like no other, and he swings like a madman."

"Stanley Clarke has seemingly done it all and then some during his exceptional career as a bassist. Perhaps most noted for his jazz playing, Clarke also shined on the rock side, notably in the late 1970s with Ronnie Wood and Keith Richards in the New Barbarians. Clarke, known for playing his instrument more like an upright bass, has the almost uncanny ability to give his guitar an almost percussive sound."

"An integral part of Ornette Coleman's early groups, Charlie Haden played an important role in the development of free jazz, while also being an extremely competent and intuitive player. While his playing and writing with the large ensemble Liberation Music Orchestra, as well as his output with Keith Jarrett's group is stellar, his duo recordings are great, as well, namely Beyond the Missouri Sky with guitarist Pat Metheny and Nightfall with pianist John Taylor."

"Critics like to describe certain records as ‘seminal’ and, in several ways, Lee Morgan’s The Sidewinder actually was. It marked a return to form for the erstwhile trumpet prodigy, whose career had gone adrift due to drugs. In 1963, still only 25, he was already a veteran of the Dizzy Gillespie band – which he had joined at 18 – and Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. The epitome of the bravura energy and bluesy drive of hard bop, Morgan was renowned for his cocky assurance, flashing technique and love of playing. He attacked solos with a boyish zest, as if he couldn’t wait to tell you everything he was feeling and show you what he could do. His blend of funk, fire and fun – plus a knack for adventurous phrasing – gave an exuberant edge to all five tracks on The Sidewinder. But the surprise was its title tune, a sinuous blues line with an infectious, hip-swinging beat which caught the ear of the public. Morgan and his record company, Blue Note, had a huge Top 40 hit on their hands, with consequences they could not have predicted. Having tasted commercial success, the trumpeter, though passionate about his art, felt his subsequent albums needed a groovy, R‘n’B-style hook. And Blue Note, a small label proud of its independence, found it couldn’t meet the demand for The Sidewinder. So it joined forces with a larger firm, and gradually moved away from its pure-jazz ethos into the twilight zone of fusion and crossover. But, as the 1960s wore on, that was clearly where jazz was headed. The Sidewinder inspired countless dumbed-down imitations, without the original’s subtle flair. Ironically, Lee Morgan fiercely opposed the trend he was thought to have started, insisting on the vital depth of jazz, which he pursued in his own playing. But his career and life were savagely ended when he was shot at a club by a jealous woman in 1972. It’s a sad and curious tale, but what remains is Lee Morgan’s achievement, not least in The Sidewinder itself. Freed from its cultural context, it retains all its ebullience, energy and charm and its famous title tune is an abiding delight. The disc’s real distinction, like that of Lee Morgan himself, is a timeless creativity."

"Dizzy Gillespie’s old friend, bassist Milt Hinton, used to say, ‘Chords are our love, but rhythm is our business,’ and that might have been Diz’s lifelong motto as well. Whether the group was large or small, the groove headlong swing or sizzling Afro-Cuban, a Gillespie band lifted you out of your seat with its sheer musical energy. And the crest of that wave was the leader’s fiery trumpet, which had revolutionised jazz brass in the ’40s. The young Gillespie could play higher and faster for longer than anybody before him, and his passionate, coruscating solos define the brave new world of bebop. Just as radical were his harmonies and rhythms – fusillades of notes tumbling over bar-lines, defying conventional chord structures. And this was not mere ‘subversion’, but a well-conceived creative strategy. Despite his madcap reputation, Dizzy Gillespie was one of the prime theoreticians of bop and a tireless teacher, demonstrating, encouraging, inspiring."

"When I was growing up people would always say, and it was meant in the kindest possible way, ‘You’re really good for a girl,’ because there weren’t a lot of girls or women playing. Out of this small pond of people, it was surprising to them. In my opinion, you’d have to be pretty unworldly to make a comment like that anymore. Nobody had the success that Alison Krauss had. So, when that happened, I think it started to make it difficult for people to look at women in bluegrass as some kind of exceptional thing. Here was a woman who really blew out the boundaries for the music and really expanded the potential for the music and brought in new listeners."