![]() ![]() Saturday Night kept bumpin up against Sunday Mornin. Rock, the “European Son” of American music (born ‘65-‘68), from the beginning did without a peculiarly American pop music pattern, particularly seen in blues and country, of good-time musicians (such as Elvis Presley, Mance Lipscomb, Johnny Cash, Duke Ellington, and many others) occasionally wandering into the performance and recording of gospel songs. Its about freedom/oppression, redemption/judgment, and gratitude/homelessness, all considered in those quiet and yet perhaps soul-wrenching hours that especially occur during the Day of Rest. ∼ome Sunday itself reflected more than that, as Ellington specifically composed it as one piece of his Black, Brown, and Beige work about Afro-American history, where its place was to present how Americas slaves felt about (and felt on) their one day of freedom from the work-weeks toil. Why did Ellington occasionally write such sacred songs? Perhaps the best initial answer is found in Albert Murrays Stomping the Blues (one of the most insightful books on popular American music), in the chapter titled The Blue Devils and the Holy Ghost, wherein the peculiar tension and connection between what Murray calls the Saturday Night Function and the Sunday Morning Service is explored, not resolved, and thus presented as a basic feature of the Afro-American socio-musical landscape. ![]() If you look on the youtube side bar, youll also find some fine adaptations by various sorts of choirs, suggesting it might well become a part of a broader classical canon, and not just the jazz and black gospel canons, for ages and ages to come. As great as Jackson always is, I encourage you to listen to the original recording more closelyafter several listens, once one gets past its apparently sleepy feel, one begins to feel its real majesty, and incidentally notices its interesting use of dissonance. I have linked to two versions of Duke Ellingtons ∼ome Sunday here, first its original recording, the second a later version featuring Mahalia Jackson singing words added to it. Both reflect an awareness that in America, and perhaps for any ∾uropean Son as well, the first day of the week (or is it the last?) does not feel like any other. Here are two pieces I can recommend unequivocally as fine music, one initially composed without words, from the jazz tradition but veering into the classical, and another with words, from the rock song canon. And while I enjoyed seeing footage of the Andy Warhol art scene and learning about Lou Reed’s fierce artistic integrity, The Velvet Underground never distinguishes itself as a film.For the seventh Songbook entry, its time for sounds that remind us of, or at least make us long for, Gods goodness. It’s fine, in that it dutifully checks off the key points in the formation and evolution of the band, but it doesn’t take any chances cinematically.Īpart from ample use of split-screen images and other frames within the frame, nothing sets this movie apart from anything you’d see on CNN or VH1. Instead, what we have here is a very straightforward Behind the Music-style documentary. Haynes’ unique take on Dylan had me hoping for a similarly creative approach to The Velvet Underground. I consider it one of the best films of the 00s. This is Haynes’ first documentary, though he has tackled musical icons in the past with Velvet Goldmine (about the glam rock scene in the 70s, and based heavily on David Bowie) and I’m Not There, which chronicled the life of Bob Dylan through multiple stages using six different actors in the central role. ![]() Writer-director Todd Haynes’ delivered another of this year’s celebrated music documentaries with The Velvet Underground, the first feature length film to explore the career of the seminal indie rock band.
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