Manafonistas

To the music of Walter Becker (Feb 20 1950 – Sept 03 2017)
 
 

Have you ever beeing bored by a fusion guitarist who was able to hit the ten-second mark in a relay race with John McLaughlin and thereby running empty as a dried up rain butt in the Mohave desert? Then take a look to the west coast – to California, home of Steely Dan! It will bring back to you the refreshing Walter of Life. Guitarist Becker was somehow a slowhanded counterpoint to the fastness of McLaughlin and part of the duo Donald Fagen & Walter Becker and their joyful mix of jazz, folk, blues and fusion elements combined with witty lyrics and songwriting. The result of this hybrid, multicoloured culture product was always something bigger than the sum of its parts and sustainably lasting like the flashbacks of a joint.

„Way back when, in Sixty-seven …“ – it was in 1980, previously doped and musically beeing hooked by dealers like Joe Zawinul, Joni Mitchell, Lowell George, Robert Palmer, John Martyn and Jean Luc Ponty. One expected, after the great pleasure of The Royal Scam, new stuff from the californian west coast and that came along quite under-cooled. The cover however is like a Picasso painted statue of the ever-dancing couple – elegantly and with that same subtle irony as the clever lyrics of the Zeitgeist-architects from the westcoast. Texts were not fully understood at that time anyway, despite language courses in Cornwall.

The dandy mistaken for „Gaamakiii“ was not that bon vivant woken up by an early-morning cock-scream. As the gamma chi he was rather high up – and just by listening one never would have been able to enscript what nowadays you can easily read by having insight to the written lyrics. The story of the albums perhaps best and still listenable song is quickly told: the protagonist travels from Boston to Scarsdale, two and a half hours on a public bus to meet a nineteen-year-old girl. He is irritated because the teeny doesn’t know „Retha“ Franklin and he feels his age. But the Mexican tequila and the Colombian grass make the night a wonderful thing – same as the salsa spiced ending of this song: sweet and delightful in the aftertaste.

 
 
„Hallo Neunzehn“ (Hey Nineteen) – remixed and translated.

H

k

to listen to the Allman Brothers‘ „Mountain Jam“ 

full volume, I mean, really full volume,

sitting, on that 5:1-mix, in the auditorium,

Fillmore East, 1971,

Duane, Greg, the heavenly rhythm corporation,

the fuckin‘ organ,

and melt away

 

 
 
 
The new album, Last Leaf by the Danish String Quartet (ECM New series,) is the kind of music that beckons one to listen in wonder, like a child. At its heart, it’s an album of deeply felt folk music, albeit dressed in superb, sophisticated arrangements and executed with consummate classical precision. Put it on and at once, you’re in familiar territory. Yet, what was that strange chord there, and why did that song start out one way and take me here …?

Besides the odd moment of untraditional dissonance, there are times when the album invokes classical minimalism, inviting one to think of Terry Riley’s string quartets – in more reflective moments I hear snippets of Arvo Part at his most spare. I even hear moments that remind me of Lou Harrison. But then, suddenly the group is off at a bright pace on what almost sounds like a traditional jig from the British isles. I have found Scandinavian folk music to be like that sometimes, not so very far from the British Isles after all, and I like it.

This is a gorgeous album that is almost impossible not to like. It is by turns, dramatic, mournful, playful and ecstatic. But it is always beautiful, sounding like it rose from a natural spring fully formed and perfectly in tune, so light and dynamic it feels as if it is being played by angels.