As we teeter on the edge of destroying our world and
ourselves, it sometimes feels (to me at least) that music might be one of the secrets
to saving it all. Why not? From the Arctic Circle to the forests of
Africa, there are tribes that believe the universe was sung into existence.
I once won a substantial bet with someone who could not believe Elvis had done a Christmas album (he actually did more than one). Here’s a great version of my favorite Elvis Christmas song, a virtual duet between Martina McBride and Elvis (he died when she was only 11):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KK6sMo8NBY
There are three famous “Ave Maria”s—by Bach, Vavilov/Caccini and Schubert. Schubert’s is probably the most popular and recognizable of the three. Ironically, it was not originally a religious song per se, but it has since been modified and re-interpreted hundreds of times and is now a Christmas staple. Here is one of my favorite renditions, also re-cast as a duet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut6ufu2CPNg
As a child, Diana was abused by her parents, and eventually abandoned in the middle of the brutal Russian winter. When she was rescued, she had a broken collarbone and suffered from developmental and speech deficits that were probably the result of the abuse. Placed in an orphanage, she likely would have remained there had she not been adopted by one of the staff members (at the urging of that person’s own daughter).
To help Diana overcome her speech deficit, a therapist suggested singing lessons. Her teachers soon discovered that she had an extraordinary voice and loved performing, and she began singing in shows and children’s festivals at every opportunity. Her big coming out took place when she was 14, and performed on Ты супер (“You’re Super”), a Russian show similar to The Voice, but restricted to orphans and children with disabilities. She won the show that year, and then again the following year when they held a series just for previous winners. Those performances, and others since then, have gone massively viral on youtube, and for good reason: She has a powerful, haunting voice, and her stage presence is riveting.
Here is her opening performance from Ты супер. It’s a cover of the French pop star Indila’s biggest hit, “Derniere Danse” (“Last Dance”).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mve3-fEuTHA
Here is her semi-final performance from the same show. “Rechenka” (“River”) is a Russian folk song in which an orphan prays to the dead to bless her wedding because she has no one else to do so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35Dwo4QVLqs
The following season, now 15, she covered Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game”. This arrangement perfectly captures the harmonics that make her voice sound so surreal. Some central Asian folk singers train to produce this kind of resonance. Hers just seems to come naturally.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jv-DQnf2UY
More Diana to come.
(Screen-shot from Heavy Metal Never Dies)
Gorgeous
compositions. Brilliant arrangements. Jedi-level musicianship. Divine female power. Fearless
performances. This band pushes
all the buttons for me. They are all
classically trained multi-instrumentalists—they play everything you hear, even doing
their own backing tracks. Their guitar tandem may be the best ever in
one band.
"Frozen Serenade" is nominally about lost love, but it’s really about the end of the world--no time to waste pining over some dumb-ass guy! It starts as a ballad, slow, measured and melancholy. You can hear the singer’s blues and soul influences. The instruments weave a dense tapestry of harmonies and fills supporting the vocals. The song’s intensity builds in stages, until cresting like a huge wave and crashing ashore. Think Ravel’s “Bolero” or Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”, and you’ve got the idea.
(If you see a sign-in pop-up, just close it and you'll get to the video.)
If you are ready to see what they're like when they uncork the napalm, here goes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99zsH6iG_6c
For a perspective on the group and what I think they mean:
https://zapatosjam.blogspot.com/2021/11/supernova-retrospective-on-first-five.html
Nightwish were founded in 1996. They were pioneers of symphonic rock—the fusion of classical-style composition with rock instrumentation. Their epic sound was built around their classically trained vocalist, Tarja Turunen. Tuomas Holopainen, the band founder and main composer, specifically wrote music tailored for Turunen’s capabilities, resulting in a unique and instantly recognizable sound. Nightwish became Finland’s biggest musical export and to this day are one of the biggest bands in Europe.
In 2005, at the height of their power and popularity, the band had a bitter breakup with Turunen and nearly disbanded completely. They eventually hired a new singer, Anette Olzon, in 2007, and released two successful albums with her. However, the band’s physically exhausting touring schedule, and the stress of constantly being compared to Turunen, wore on her, and in the middle of their 2012 Americas tour, she broke down and was unable to continue. Faced with the prospect of cancelling the rest of the tour, Holopainen called Floor Jansen, with whom he was acquainted from the European metal scene, and asked if she would be willing to step in. He knew that she could handle big, challenging songs, but it was still a huge risk for all of them.
Jansen flew to the U.S. with two days to learn the set list. Both she and the band were apprehensive that the turmoil in the lineup would not go over well with the fans, but they soldiered on and played the remaining U.S. dates, mostly in small venues, allowing Jansen to establish her chemistry with the band. Then they headed to South America, where they have a bigger and more committed fan-base. At each stop, they had to face the fans’ skepticism. The fans still idolized Turunen, but each time, Jansen won them over.
This is “Ghost Love Score”, from the final concert of
the tour, in Buenos Aires. It is the band's signature song, a ten-minute, six-movement epic which
calls for extreme vocal agility, power and endurance. Their performance a year later at Wacken Open Air in 2013 would be more polished, but this one
captures the moment when Jansen took full ownership of the song, and the band realized that
they were going to be all right. Jansen not only nailed it, but she rewrote
the ending, adding a spectacular vocal climax which fans have since dubbed the “Floorgasm”. It has become a hallmark of their performances ever since.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V_eoR6r1Tw
If you want to check out the 2013 performance at Wacken, here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYjIlHWBAVo
Stabat Mater Dolorosa
One of the most beautiful pieces of music I know of is Giovanni Pergolesi’s 1735 masterpiece, "Stabat Mater”, based on a 13th Century sacral hymn about Mary mourning the crucifixion. The best-known movement is the first one, “Stabat Mater Dolorosa”. Here is my favorite version, performed by the two leading ladies of metal, Simone Simons and Floor Jansen. The piece is written for soprano and contralto. Jansen, who normally sings in the soprano range, takes the contralto line here, without any loss of power or clarity.
They did this in the middle of a thunderous show by Simons' symphonic rock band Epica. Watch them reduce a stadium full of amped up metalheads to stunned silence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqdvFPBGN0c
Beste Zangers Finale: Phantom of the Opera
Henk Poort played Erik in the first European productions of “The Phantom of the Opera”, and was said to be Andrew Lloyd Webber’s favorite Phantom. Rumor had it that Jansen agreed to do Beste Zangers only after hearing Henk was on board, because she wanted to sing “Phantom” with him. Fans went crazy speculating whether they would do it. Not to worry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plCScjvDOJM
Nightwish: Ever Dream
You’ve seen Floor do opera, classical, ballads and more. Here she goes full-on metal and blows the roof off.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xi4n8dJcF8
(Screen-shot from Heavy Metal Never Dies)
If you had predicted, six years ago, that a musical group would come along and reverse heavy metal’s seemingly inexorable descent into darkness, negativity and harshness, and reveal metal as something that can be glorious, melodic and inspiring, no one would have taken you seriously. If you had said this group would be composed of women, you would have been met with blank stares. After all, in the West today, high-profile female rockers can be counted on one hand. There have been very few women in rock, ever. A whole group of them? No way.
If you had furthermore said this group would raise the bar on instrumental virtuosity in a field which many thought had reached its limit, you would have been met with laughter. “Girls don’t play guitar” goes the old stereotype. (Never mind that according to Fender, the global market for electric guitars is increasingly dependent on female customers.) Besides, say some experts, “The progress is all in recording and production technology now. So, dream on."
Well, such a group showed up in 2016. They named themselves Lovebites, after a song by Halestorm, one of the few female-led bands still alive and kicking in the U.S. They chose the wolf as their avatar, because they know they are "lone wolves" in a world where most musicians - and women in particular - are doing pop. As it turns out, wolves are matriarchal, which makes them the perfect symbol for a group of women this fierce.
The typical reaction of rock fans on first seeing and hearing Lovebites is...confusion. They are tiny, almost ethereal in their appearance, but they play explosive, highly technical music—exactly the kind that women are not expected to play. With every performance, they shatter one of the most enduring glass ceilings in music by proving that women can do heavy metal as well as or better than the men who invented and defined it.
In fact, they have done more than break the glass ceiling: they have erased the traditional lane markers in popular music altogether. Women in Western mainstream music largely stay in the singer-songwriter lane. However, there is a rebellion under way in other parts of the world, and Lovebites are one of the groups leading that rebellion. They have shown that it is ok for women to sing about more than bad relationships and heartbreak. That it's ok to be complete bad-asses on rock instruments. That it’s ok to be better than the dudes. That, in fact, it’s ok not to sing about dudes at all!
If you are not used to high-octane rock or metal, Lovebites can be daunting at first. The rewards, however, are some of the most intricate and beautiful compositions in modern music. They don’t do throw-away, radio-ready songs; they do concertos and anthems. For music nerds who love to study the details of arrangements and technique, they are a gold mine. All five members of the band have training in classical music, jazz and/or blues, and they all take a hand in composing songs for the group. As a result, much of their work has the majestic feel you get from the great classical composers, such as Beethoven or Chopin, or from great adventure-movie sound tracks. They express it all in a deep, diverse musical vocabulary.
There have been a lot of great acts in popular music—acts that had an impact the first time you heard them, and that still have an impact, even decades later. However, there have only been a handful that actually changed the way we listen to music. I’m thinking of artists like The Beatles, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Tina Turner, King Crimson and Nightwish. They forced us to re-hear everything else with different ears.
For me, Lovebites are such a band. Their roots are in the 70’s and 80’s “golden
age” of rock--Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Queen, Metallica, Iron Maiden etc., but
they add modern arrangements and dazzling musicianship to create a fresh,
unique sound. Divine feminine energy infuses their
compositions and arrangements. The simplest way to say it is that they have
made metal unabashedly beautiful.
Intentional or not, there is a political aspect to a band like this. In the midst of the forever debates over the place of women in our society, these women defy easy
categorization. They dress like fairy
princesses, while savagely wielding instruments built for men close to twice their
size. They do it with absurd ease and confidence, rather than the
histrionics and grimaces that a lot of male rockers engage in. We hear all the time that our society does not like powerful women. Don't tell that to their legions of fans, both men and women, who love them for their uncompromising attitude and sheer bad-assery.
Lovebites tackle daunting themes like defying fate, finding unity, overcoming failure, breaking walls, self-sacrifice, conquering inner darkness and reaching for the impossible. They have sung about spiritual salvation, nuclear winter, and finding humanity in the aftermath of an atomic bombing. There is no energy wasted on pining over some dumb-ass guy, which seems to be the only acceptable theme for Western female pop stars. For me, hearing Lovebites the first few times was like receiving a package wrapped in velvet, done up with lace and ribbons--and opening it to find a sledgehammer. Everyone who wonders at the dearth of powerful female role models in popular culture needs to see this band in action.
One of Floor Jansen’s gifts is her ability to channel so many different kinds of singing. This post focuses on some of her performances on “Beste Zangers”. It's a Dutch musical reality show in which established artists take turns performing for each other, often going out of their normal comfort zone to try their hand at styles they don't normally sing. The show was unknown outside Holland until it was announced that Jansen would be appearing in the 2019 season--upon which it went viral. Nightwish fans all over the world descended on the show, week after week, to see what she would do, and brought others with them. What they got was a mind-blowing demonstration of vocal prowess and versatility.
Jansen was tapped to perform the opening song of the season. This was the first time most of the other artists had heard her sing. She had been introduced to them simply as the singer in a metal band, so it’s amusing to watch them trying to process what they are witnessing. Here she does her own arrangement of the German opera aria, “Vilja Lied”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcLG5X1i2QM
Jansen singing salsa/reggaeton: “Que se Siente”. She already speaks and performs in Dutch, English, Swedish, German and Finnish. She had to learn a little Spanish to do this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfYeLUoqw0E
Here is Jansen channeling Patsy Cline, with “I Don’t Know a Thing about Love”, sung in English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahykaAPHhs8
I already featured Floor Jansen in my entries on Symphonic Rock, Folk Rock and Covers. I consider her the greatest vocalist I've ever heard, so I’m doing some posts just on her. Hopefully you’ll come away with a sense of why I think she is so special.
Jansen, who has been Nightwish’s frontwoman since late 2012, regularly sings from the high tenor range to E6 without any loss of power, finesse or clarity. She easily handles romantic ballads, pop, classical and opera arias, and heavy metal. The only singers I have heard of with comparable range are Yma Sumac and Dimash Kudaibergen, and they lack her versatility. Sumac also never had Jansen’s power and depth of tone. Kudaibergen has power, and had classical training, but professionally he has yet to venture out of his lane in pop music. Meanwhile, mainstream opera and classical singers as a rule avoid testing themselves in other styles or genres, so we will never know what most of them might have been capable of. Among Western non-classically trained singers, perhaps Freddie Mercury was in Jansen’s class, but I can’t think of anyone else.
Starting with simplicity: Here, on “Beste Zangers”, a Dutch reality show featuring small groups of established recording artists, Jansen sings a ballad. “Mama”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj1ibZrjQTs
This song honors Eugene Shoemaker, the geologist and astronomer. He discovered several families of asteroids and comets (you may remember Shoemaker-Levy, whose collision with Jupiter got global coverage here on Earth). He showed that craters on the Earth and Moon were caused by meteor impacts. He ran the Geoscience program at NASA, and was himself slated for an Apollo Moon mission. He was disqualified for medical reasons, which he admitted was the greatest disappointment of his life. After his death, his ashes were taken to the Moon on a NASA probe and laid to rest in a crater named after him—the only person to date interred on another planetary body. The capsule holding his ashes is inscribed with a passage from Romeo and Juliet, which you will hear in voice-over in this song.
I included this clip previously in my first post on Symphonic Rock. If you missed it then, don't miss it now. In keeping with the theme of the song, the ending is truly out of this world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rjp_DfvJimg
Here is Jansen at her day job, performing live with Nightwish. This is a bit of rock opera. “Stargazers”:
Senri Kawaguchi started shaking things up when she was 12. When she was 13, Drummerworld named her one of the 500 best drummers of all time. At age 24, she has already headlined several international tours and done session work with some of the top jazz and fusion musicians in the world. She gives master classes to other professional-level drummers. So, we know her skills are off the chart, but what sets her apart is her innate sense of swing. I could go on, but there is nothing like watching her in action.
“Onyx”, live (2014)
Senri started headlining her own tours in 2014. This is from a live session at the Bottom Line in LA, supporting her first full length solo album, “Buena Vista”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsAMVV9LugY
“Wupatki” live (2017)
Recorded at Motion Blue, Yokohama, with ongoing collaborators Philippe Saisse and Armand Sabal-Lecco. This won the 2017 Jazz Japan Award for best live performance. I hear echoes of the great fusion groups of the 70’s and 80’s--Sabal-Lecco’s bass leads are reminiscent of Stanley Clarke. Senri smiles joyously while burning the house down. The sound is so rich it’s hard to imagine this is just a three-piece band.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrHJoY6RzR0
“Crazy Army” live (2011, Steve Gadd cover)
Here is a look back at Senri at 14, performing an extended solo originally written by Steve Gadd. Lots of young phenoms can play fast and hit hard. Almost none have this kind of discipline. It’s like watching a high-wire act without a safety net, and it says a lot about why she became so good so fast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnx3bIoFb-0
Since I discovered The Hu, they have been on my bucket list to see live. They came to San Francisco to play the Outer Lands Music Festival this weekend, but I didn't have a pass. As luck would have it, they booked an additional gig downtown for the night of the 30th. Wish fulfilled.
The Hu combine traditional Mongolian chanting, throat-singing and instrumentation with modern electric bass and guitar. The effect is hypnotizing. The best comment I've read about them was "These guys make me proud to be Mongolian, and I'm Latino!"
In addition to an assortment of local rock fans and metalheads, it seemed as though every Mongolian in the Bay Area showed up, as well as a number of Kazakhs, Uzbeks and various other Central Asian folks. I guess when you are 10,000 miles from home, the local distinctions don’t matter as much.
Of course, these bands are already loaded with boss-level musicians--everything they do sounds well played. What sets the performances here apart are innovative composition and arrangements. They are also mixed well, so you can hear each voice in the band clearly. First, a classic, followed by three pieces released this year.
King Crimson: “Red” (1974)
I believe the “Red” album stands the test of time as one of the greatest albums ever made. Each piece is wildly different from the others, but they fit together into something gorgeous, dark and sinister. The title track sounds intense and tightly wound despite actually being set to a leisurely beat. It draws directly on Bartok and Stravinsky, with heavy use of tritonic scales, odd time signatures, and an unexpected cello solo. Bill Bruford’s drumming is a tour de force.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_pDwv3tpug
Bridear: “Brave New
World Revisited” (2021)
This piece gets going with hints of Yes, King Crimson and Dream Theater, among others, and then takes off from there. It’s a roller-coaster ride of changing moods, multiple time signatures, layered harmonies, and gorgeous little piano, drum and guitar fills. Actually, I think it’s a breakout performance for the drummer. Now someone needs to make a movie just so they can use this as the sound track.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6-OXcyMkYI
Band-Maid: “Manners”
and “Black Hole” (2021)
Band-Maid have staked out a position as one of the most musically ambitious rock bands in the world. This is a live performance, but it sounds studio-perfect. “Manners” is built on a groovy, funky bass line and lots of syncopation. If there was ever a case for the bass as a lead instrument, this is it. “Black Hole” switches into a higher gear, with a lot of call-and-response among the various voices and instruments. There is a line about “space distortion” which perfectly captures the slightly chaotic feel of the song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaf94nNSRGE
Hiromi Uehara has emerged as a leading exponent of solo jazz piano, in the tradition of Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson. She did her first international performances at the age of 14. In 1996, when she was 17, she met Chick Corea during Chick’s tour of Japan. She played a short improvisation for him, and on the spot he invited her to join him on stage for his next performance. She eventually went on to study at Berklee, was mentored by Ahmad Jamal among others, and did several more collaborations with Chick. She frequently tours internationally, and was one of the featured performers in the opening ceremony at the recent Tokyo Olympics
“Yellow Wurlitzer Blues” (Hiromi)
Hiromi is a dedicated student of jazz history, and it shows in this piece. She weaves together throwback elements from stride piano, a la Scott Joplin and Art Tatum, with Thelonious Monk-like excursions into odd time signatures and unexpected dissonances, and even throws in a little boogie-woogie. Somehow it all works, and it's really fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxFdRQtgwcc
“Concierto de Aranjuez” (Rodrigo) (duet with Chick Corea)
“Concierto” is one of the most influential pieces of classical music ever written. You’ve heard bits of it a million times in movie soundtracks. I previously posted Jim Hall’s jazz version of it here: (http://zapatosjam.blogspot.com/2020/07/guitar-magic-1-paco-de-lucia-jim-hall.html). Here, Hiromi and Chick turn in a madly innovative rendition that defies description. The entire session was published on their CD “Duet”. Set aside 12 minutes or so—it’s well worth it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s11ER546zBM
“Robert Trujillo” One Minute Portrait (with Robert Trujillo)
Hiromi has done a series of one-minute improvisations with artists from all over the map. Here she jams with Robert Trujillo, long-time bassist for Metallica. Needless to say, this was a bit unexpected!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzCTIeKa7XM
Of course, whether you think these are better is a matter of personal taste. I do think each of these adds something significant to the original song. The first two of these pieces were previously posted under other topics—“Guitar Magic” and “Violin Magic”. Since they are covers and since they're so good, I figure they deserve inclusion on this list as well. If you saw them before, you know.
Tina Setkic: “The Loner” (Gary Moore)
Moore could shred but was not a shredder--his best
compositions were his emotional, desolate-sounding blues pieces. Tina’s interpretation shouldn’t be possible
for a 15-year old, but she definitively nails it. If you missed this when I posted it before, it's worth a listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9e9AyDXx19Q
“Far Beyond the Sun” (Yngwie Malmsteen instrumental cover, 2021)
Malmsteen is one of the pioneers of neo-classical rock guitar. He writes complex, classically inspired scores intended to be played at warp speed. This piece includes riffs from Beethoven and Paganini, and even a little Baroque accent at the end. Unlucky Morpheus transcribed the keyboard part for guitar, and Malmsteen’s original guitar line for violin. The violinist, Jill, uncorks a surreal performance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2hZDzJp9Pc
Floor Jansen: “Alone” (Heart)
Ann and Nancy Wilson are two of my heroes, so this choice is
not at all meant to diss them. They
rocked hard at a time when women were not supposed to rock, and they also did
great power ballads, of which this was the best. It’s just that Floor Jansen is, well, Floor
Jansen. Here she strips the song back to the fundamentals--just a piano and her.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fu-yP6q6Gk
Leo Moracchioli and Mary Spender: “Sultans of Swing” (Dire Straits)
Leo is a multi-instrumentalist who lives in a tiny village in Norway, and records crazy, hugely popular youtube covers in his home studio. Mary Spender is an English singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and youtube star in her own right. (Note—the last minute of this clip is a promo, so it’s optional.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0RV0kgdqJU
