Don't You Know There's a War On?
CDs: soundtrack to The War: A Ken Burns Film, multiple CDs, including Songs without Words
A lifetime ago my father and I got into the car for a very long drive to the airport. On the way we played tapes of music from the big band era and Second World War, things like "Ole Buttermilk Sky" and "Bell Bottom Trousers," even "He Wears a Pair of Silver Wings" and "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition." My father was more of a Glenn Miller fan than a Sammy Kaye buff, but I think he enjoyed that musical road trip, and I suspect he hadn't heard most of that stuff in years.
During my university years I had warmed to '30s and '40s music, thanks in part to a roommate who played the local big band radio show every night in our dorm room. The music's essential optimism and innocence appealed to me -- this was before I saw that footage of Betty Hutton belting out "Murder, He Says" -- and it cast something of a rosy glow on my father's youth during the Depression and service in World War II. We didn't use the term "Greatest Generation" then.
Six years ago, on the weekend after September 11th, I took out my John McDermott CD and played his version of Eric Bogle's "The Green Fields of France" again and again. The song, also known as "No Man's Land," is an address to a fallen soldier of the First World War, the sort of material that invites maudlin interpretations. I'd first heard it from Annette Condon, my Irish neighbor in Germany (!), who sang Bogle's words to "young Willie McBride" with a mournful gentleness. I've since come to embrace the song's essential anger.
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
The Great War didn't end anything, of course, nor did the Second World War, as each morning's headlines and the images displayed in "Faces of the Fallen" prove.
Given those considerations, I can understand if you find yourself resistant to watching PBS's The War, the new Ken Burns documentary, particularly one on such a painful subject. Nevertheless, I hope you will take the time to catch some episodes over the next few days on MPT or WETA, or WETA's encore presentation on Wednesdays from October through mid-November. The DVD is due early next month as well.
I'm watching the series with my heart in my mouth. It's a humbling and overwhelming experience to hear the testimony from living witnesses, both veterans and those from the home front. I'm left with a sense of what dread and exhilaration might have filled their lives. As the playwright Claudia Shear observed, "Everybody has a story. Everybody has at least one story that will stop your heart."
And in an age when the twin demands of partisanship and consumerism battle for our attention, The War provides a tutorial on the apparently lost art of frugality, with a generous dollop of national unity. The seven-day wartime work week gets its due, as does "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without."
This is not to say that Burns pays no attention to human nature, societal failings, and the limits of leadership. Both internment camps and the segregated military are touched upon, as are strategic errors within the war itself.
Burns doesn't skimp on the letters, the personal accounts, the newsreels and other footage. It's powerful stuff, and I'm only part of the way through it.
And as is usual with a Ken Burns film, the music enhances the story. You won't be surprised to hear he's made extensive use of the jazz, pop vocals, and dance music of the era, juxtaposing it both with recent compositions and judiciously chosen classical pieces. Several of the latter come directly from the era.
It takes several discs to contain all of the highlights. The lead disc, The War: A Ken Burns Film, provides an overview of the music by mixing up the genres: wartime jukebox favorites cheek by jowl with jazz and classical. That means both Bing Crosby's mellow reading of "It's Been a Long, Long Time" (with Les Paul on guitar!) and the London Philharmonic's performance of Walton's "The Death of Falstaff" from his Henry V Suite. The disc opens and closes with interpretations of the moving "American Anthem," first by Norah Jones and then by Amanda Forsyth and Bill Charlap.
That is followed by three separate discs: two compilations of big band treasures, Sentimental Journey and I'm Beginning to See the Light, and a classical CD, Songs without Words.
On the Songs without Words disc for the series, you'll find "Nimrod," the adagio from Elgar's Enigma Variations. This is the piece of music invariably chosen to accompany the dramatic readings at the National Memorial Day Concert each May, and those of you from the U.K. will perhaps have heard it on Remembrance Sunday. "Nimrod" wasn't composed to commemorate the war dead, but it seems infused with both melancholy and hope, as well as a quiet dignity.
It's possible you'll also recognize the wistful and tender "The Story of Grover's Corners" from Aaron Copland. Can anything quite evoke American small-town life as well?
The disc is rounded out with chamber and orchestral pieces from Copland, Dvorak, Faure, Ligeti, Mendelssohn, and, most appropriately, Olivier Messiaen, who composed and performed his Quartet for the End of Time in a prison camp. Walton's "Death of Falstaff" is heard here as well. The arrangements and performances make Songs without Words both haunting and moving.
I might add that the performers include Yo-Yo Ma, Steven Isserlis, Richard Stoltzman, and of course Benny Goodman.
Sentimental Journey and I'm Beginning to See the Light take a completely different approach and telegraph their intentions just by the titles. These are the tracks for dancing and flirting and waiting for that next trip home.
I don't care if you're more into e-mail than V-mail, or too young to remember the Reagan administration, let alone FDR's fireside chats. You owe it to yourself to listen to greats on Sentimental Journey and I'm Beginning to See the Light. The veterans and ex-riveters among you have already figured out the play list, but I'll just note that Burns has rounded up the usual suspects: Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Harry James, Gene Krupa, and many more of the whole wonderful gang, vocalists and all.
If you crave more of the play list for the home front and the GI, you can also check out Rhino's wonderful Songs That Got Us Through World War II, a CD that invariably had customers asking, "What are you playing?" every time I had it on at Olsson's Bethesda. The disc includes Johnny Mercer's infectious "Ac-Cen-Tchu-Ate the Positive" and Vaughn Monroe's "When the Lights Go On Again All Over the World." The real test of its appeal is that it both draws you back into a moment in time and yet possesses an enduring relevance.
A lifetime ago my father and I got into the car for a very long drive to the airport. On the way we played tapes of music from the big band era and Second World War, things like "Ole Buttermilk Sky" and "Bell Bottom Trousers," even "He Wears a Pair of Silver Wings" and "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition." My father was more of a Glenn Miller fan than a Sammy Kaye buff, but I think he enjoyed that musical road trip, and I suspect he hadn't heard most of that stuff in years.
During my university years I had warmed to '30s and '40s music, thanks in part to a roommate who played the local big band radio show every night in our dorm room. The music's essential optimism and innocence appealed to me -- this was before I saw that footage of Betty Hutton belting out "Murder, He Says" -- and it cast something of a rosy glow on my father's youth during the Depression and service in World War II. We didn't use the term "Greatest Generation" then.
Six years ago, on the weekend after September 11th, I took out my John McDermott CD and played his version of Eric Bogle's "The Green Fields of France" again and again. The song, also known as "No Man's Land," is an address to a fallen soldier of the First World War, the sort of material that invites maudlin interpretations. I'd first heard it from Annette Condon, my Irish neighbor in Germany (!), who sang Bogle's words to "young Willie McBride" with a mournful gentleness. I've since come to embrace the song's essential anger.
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
The Great War didn't end anything, of course, nor did the Second World War, as each morning's headlines and the images displayed in "Faces of the Fallen" prove.
Given those considerations, I can understand if you find yourself resistant to watching PBS's The War, the new Ken Burns documentary, particularly one on such a painful subject. Nevertheless, I hope you will take the time to catch some episodes over the next few days on MPT or WETA, or WETA's encore presentation on Wednesdays from October through mid-November. The DVD is due early next month as well.I'm watching the series with my heart in my mouth. It's a humbling and overwhelming experience to hear the testimony from living witnesses, both veterans and those from the home front. I'm left with a sense of what dread and exhilaration might have filled their lives. As the playwright Claudia Shear observed, "Everybody has a story. Everybody has at least one story that will stop your heart."
And in an age when the twin demands of partisanship and consumerism battle for our attention, The War provides a tutorial on the apparently lost art of frugality, with a generous dollop of national unity. The seven-day wartime work week gets its due, as does "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without."
This is not to say that Burns pays no attention to human nature, societal failings, and the limits of leadership. Both internment camps and the segregated military are touched upon, as are strategic errors within the war itself.
Burns doesn't skimp on the letters, the personal accounts, the newsreels and other footage. It's powerful stuff, and I'm only part of the way through it.
And as is usual with a Ken Burns film, the music enhances the story. You won't be surprised to hear he's made extensive use of the jazz, pop vocals, and dance music of the era, juxtaposing it both with recent compositions and judiciously chosen classical pieces. Several of the latter come directly from the era.
It takes several discs to contain all of the highlights. The lead disc, The War: A Ken Burns Film, provides an overview of the music by mixing up the genres: wartime jukebox favorites cheek by jowl with jazz and classical. That means both Bing Crosby's mellow reading of "It's Been a Long, Long Time" (with Les Paul on guitar!) and the London Philharmonic's performance of Walton's "The Death of Falstaff" from his Henry V Suite. The disc opens and closes with interpretations of the moving "American Anthem," first by Norah Jones and then by Amanda Forsyth and Bill Charlap.
That is followed by three separate discs: two compilations of big band treasures, Sentimental Journey and I'm Beginning to See the Light, and a classical CD, Songs without Words.
On the Songs without Words disc for the series, you'll find "Nimrod," the adagio from Elgar's Enigma Variations. This is the piece of music invariably chosen to accompany the dramatic readings at the National Memorial Day Concert each May, and those of you from the U.K. will perhaps have heard it on Remembrance Sunday. "Nimrod" wasn't composed to commemorate the war dead, but it seems infused with both melancholy and hope, as well as a quiet dignity.
It's possible you'll also recognize the wistful and tender "The Story of Grover's Corners" from Aaron Copland. Can anything quite evoke American small-town life as well?
The disc is rounded out with chamber and orchestral pieces from Copland, Dvorak, Faure, Ligeti, Mendelssohn, and, most appropriately, Olivier Messiaen, who composed and performed his Quartet for the End of Time in a prison camp. Walton's "Death of Falstaff" is heard here as well. The arrangements and performances make Songs without Words both haunting and moving.
I might add that the performers include Yo-Yo Ma, Steven Isserlis, Richard Stoltzman, and of course Benny Goodman.
Sentimental Journey and I'm Beginning to See the Light take a completely different approach and telegraph their intentions just by the titles. These are the tracks for dancing and flirting and waiting for that next trip home.
I don't care if you're more into e-mail than V-mail, or too young to remember the Reagan administration, let alone FDR's fireside chats. You owe it to yourself to listen to greats on Sentimental Journey and I'm Beginning to See the Light. The veterans and ex-riveters among you have already figured out the play list, but I'll just note that Burns has rounded up the usual suspects: Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Harry James, Gene Krupa, and many more of the whole wonderful gang, vocalists and all.
If you crave more of the play list for the home front and the GI, you can also check out Rhino's wonderful Songs That Got Us Through World War II, a CD that invariably had customers asking, "What are you playing?" every time I had it on at Olsson's Bethesda. The disc includes Johnny Mercer's infectious "Ac-Cen-Tchu-Ate the Positive" and Vaughn Monroe's "When the Lights Go On Again All Over the World." The real test of its appeal is that it both draws you back into a moment in time and yet possesses an enduring relevance.
0 Comments:
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home