The great Duke Elling­ton and his long­time musi­cal part­ner Bil­ly Stray­horn per­formed such musi­cal feats of strength togeth­er over the course of near­ly three decades that they can seem to dwarf many of their con­tem­po­raries. The two co-com­posers had a knack for turn­ing pop­u­lar music—jazz, rag­time, the blues—into high art, then trans­mut­ing it right back into pop again, via three-minute blasts of swing like their most famous tune “Take the A Train.” In some respects, Elling­ton and Stray­horn’s com­po­si­tions are like that of writ­ers who har­mo­nize hip ver­nac­u­lar, pop­u­lar idiom, and The Great Tra­di­tion into works that feel thrilling­ly fresh and time­less all at once. And so it makes per­fect sense that Elling­ton and Stray­horn would com­pose a suite of songs based on scenes from William Shake­speare, that most skill­ful of lit­er­ary alchemists, and that it would turn out to be, in the words of poet and music crit­ic A.B. Spell­man, “one of the most remark­able orches­tral pieces in all of Amer­i­can music.”

That piece, Such Sweet Thun­der, found its impe­tus in Shakespeare’s most mag­i­cal play, A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream, notably in a line that so well cap­tures the har­mo­nious clash­ing of styles and lan­guages in both the Duke and the Bard: “I nev­er heard so musi­cal a dis­cord, such sweet thun­der.” Dan­ger­ous Minds quotes Elling­ton, who called the piece his “attempt to par­al­lel the vignettes of some of the Shake­speare­an char­ac­ters in miniature—sometimes to the point of car­i­ca­ture.” The suite of songs pre­miered at New York’s Town Hall in April, 1957, at a con­cert called “Music for Mod­erns.” Its final num­ber had yet to be writ­ten. Soon after, at the Ravinia Music Fes­ti­val out­side Chica­go, Elling­ton intro­duced the first broad­cast per­for­mance, which you can hear in full above. See below for the titles of each song and list of soloists.

1:48 Son­net For Sis­ter Kate [solo: Quentin Jack­son]
4:53 Up And Down. Up And Down [solo: Clark Ter­ry]
8:04 Star-Crossed Lovers [solo: John­ny Hodges]
12:38 Mad­ness In Great Ones [solo: Cat Ander­son]
16:25 Half The Fun [solo: John­ny Hodges]
20:42 Cir­cle Of Fourths [solo: Paul Gon­salves]
23:23 Jam With Sam [solos: Willie Cook, Paul Gon­salves, Britt Wood­man, Rus­sell Pro­cope, Cat Ander­son]

Elling­ton, the CBS radio announc­er at the begin­ning informs us, was first spurred by his atten­dance at the Strat­ford Ontario Shake­speare Fes­ti­val in 1956. But he had been a devo­tee of the­ater, and of Shake­speare, for many years. Stray­horn, it seems, was even more so. Spell­man tells us that Stray­horn “was deep into Shake­speare […] could quote whole sec­tions of plays [….], vast num­bers of son­nets from mem­o­ry, at the drop of a hat.” Immersed not only in the­ater, but in clas­si­cal music, Strayhorn’s first ambi­tion was to become a clas­si­cal com­pos­er. While the col­or bar­ri­er sti­fled that dream, his move into jazz was cer­tain­ly no com­pro­mise. Stray­horn and Elling­ton “were so attuned to one anoth­er musi­cal­ly,” writes a biog­ra­phy com­pan­ion to Ken Burn’s Jazz, “that it is now impos­si­ble to estab­lish the exact extent of the former’s con­tri­bu­tion to Ellington’s oeu­vre.” (Elling­ton called Stray­horn “my right arm, my left arm, all the eyes in the back of my head.”) Giv­en Strayhorn’s deep knowl­edge of Shakespeare’s work, it’s prob­a­bly fair to assume that his con­tri­bu­tion to Such Sweet Thun­der was sig­nif­i­cant. Above, see selec­tions from a 1959 per­for­mance in Switzer­land, and just below, see a 1960 avant-garde bal­let chore­o­graphed to Elling­ton and Strayhorn’s Shake­speare suite by Mau­rice Béjart, anoth­er artist with a par­tic­u­lar tal­ent for bring­ing high art themes and styles to pop­u­lar audi­ences.

via Dan­ger­ous Minds

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Duke Ellington’s Sym­pho­ny in Black, Star­ring a 19-Year-old Bil­lie Hol­i­day

Duke Elling­ton Plays for Joan Miró in the South of France, 1966: Bassist John Lamb Looks Back on the Day

Thelo­nious Monk Plays Duke Elling­ton: Solo Piano, Berlin 1969

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.

Bach wrote 1080 com­po­si­tions dur­ing his life­time. And now thanks to the new and cer­tain­ly ambi­tious All of Bach web site, you can even­tu­al­ly watch the Nether­lands Bach Soci­ety (found­ed in 1921) per­form each and every one of those com­po­si­tions. The site fea­tures 13 per­for­mances so far (see below), which means there’s only anoth­er 1067 to go. A new Bach record­ing will go live every Fri­day. So you mark your cal­en­dars and check in week­ly for the next 20 years. Thanks to Erik for send­ing this our way!

First record­ings:

• Nun Komm, der Hei­den Hei­land — Can­ta­ta, BWV 61
• Toc­ca­ta and Fugue in D minor — Organ work, BWV 565
• Herr Gott, Dich loben alle wir — Can­ta­ta, BWV 130
• Herr Gott, nun schleuss den Him­mel auf Herr Gott, nun schleuss den Him­mel auf Organ work — BWV 617
• Organ con­cer­to in A minor (after Vival­di) — BWV 593
• Ich habe genung — Can­ta­ta — BWV 82
• The Well-Tem­pered Clavier I Pre­lude and Fugue in F sharp major — BWV 858
• The Well-Tem­pered Clavier I no. 6 in D minor Key­board work — BWV 851
• The Well-Tem­pered Clavier I no. 12 in F minor Key­board work — BWV 857
• Fan­ta­sia and Fuge in G Minor — Organ Work BWV 542
• Schwingt freudig euch empor Schwingt freudig euch empor Can­ta­ta — BWV 36
• Wir müssen durch viel Trüb­sal in das Reich Gottes einge­hen Wir müssen durch viel Trüb­sal in das Reich Gottes einge­hen Can­ta­ta — BWV 146
• Vater unser im Him­mel­re­ich Vater unser im Him­mel­re­ich Organ work — BWV 682

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Big Bach Down­load: All of Bach’s Organ Works for Free

The Genius of J.S. Bach’s “Crab Canon” Visu­al­ized on a Möbius Strip

Video: Glenn Gould Plays the Gold­berg Vari­a­tions by J.S. Bach

We’ve brought you Talk­ing Heads shows from New York’s CBGB in 1975, Dort­mund, Ger­many in 1980, and Rome that same year. Now we’ve got one more valu­able live find from that for­ma­tive, busy era for the David Byrne-led, Rhode Island School of Design-forged new-wave band: their Novem­ber 1978 per­for­mance in Syra­cuse. The exact venue? Per­haps some­where at Syra­cuse Uni­ver­si­ty, per­haps not, though a col­lege per­for­mance space would make sense, giv­en how many insti­tu­tions of high­er edu­ca­tion they played in 1978. The Talk­ing Heads Con­cert His­to­ry blog has a com­plete list, and the total num­ber of shows in that year alone comes in, aston­ish­ing­ly, at over 130, a fair few of them at schools like NYU, Brown, Berklee, Berke­ley, UCLA, and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ari­zona. “It was real­ly an edu­ca­tion for us,” the page quotes drum­mer Chris Frantz as say­ing of the 1978 tour. “I’m afraid we bit off more than we could chew. We thought that we could play every night, and we found that after four months we were feel­ing pret­ty unin­spired.”

Yet this Syra­cuse gig, which came ten months in, sounds pret­ty inspired to me. It looks it, too, at least from what I can dis­cern from the lo-fi footage. What the image lacks in crisp­ness, though, it makes up for in tech­no­log­i­cal inter­est; it has the sig­na­ture look of the Sony Por­ta­pak, one of the very ear­ly portable con­sumer video record­ing sys­tems beloved of the 1970s’ video ama­teurs and video artists alike. Who­ev­er manned the Por­ta­pak for these 92 min­utes in Syra­cuse cap­tured a valu­able chap­ter in the Talk­ing Heads sto­ry, one the band spent work­ing as hard as pos­si­ble — which, of course, meant play­ing as hard, and as often, as pos­si­ble — and refin­ing their inim­itable sound and sen­si­bil­i­ty in con­cert spaces that, while often low-pro­file, nev­er­the­less pro­vid­ed them with excit­ed and appre­cia­tive audi­ences. Col­lege stu­dents and oth­er­wise, came eager to hear some­thing new — and giv­en that the 70s, that decade of slick dis­co and smooth rock, had almost come to a close, some­thing a bit askew. The Talk­ing Heads, as we see them here, could glad­ly deliv­er.

Set list:

1. The Big Coun­try
2. Warn­ing Sign
3. The Book I Read
4. Stay Hun­gry
5. Artists Only
6. The Girls Want to Be with the Girls
7. The Good Thing
8. Love Goes to Build­ings on Fire
9. Elec­tric­i­ty
10. Found a Job
11. Take Me to the Riv­er
12. I’m Not in Love
13. No Com­pas­sion

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch the Talk­ing Heads Play Live in Dort­mund, Ger­many Dur­ing Their Hey­day (1980)

Talk­ing Heads Play CBGB, the New York Club that Shaped Their Sound (1975)

Live in Rome, 1980: The Talk­ing Heads Con­cert Film You Haven’t Seen

Talk­ing Heads’ “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” Per­formed on Tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese Instru­ments

David Byrne: How Archi­tec­ture Helped Music Evolve

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

The lega­cy of Rick James, who died in 2004, may be for­ev­er entwined with Dave Chappelle’s insane imper­son­ations and MC Hammer’s use of “Super Freak,” but there is anoth­er major star whose one­time asso­ci­a­tion with James has been obscured in music his­to­ry. I’m talk­ing about Neil Young, who once played gui­tar in a Toron­to R&B group called The Mynah Birds, the first most­ly white band signed to Motown Records in the mid-60s. The band’s lead singer? A young AWOL Amer­i­can sailor who went by the name of Ricky James Matthews, lat­er Rick James. Before James went full-on funk and Young invent­ed folk-rock, the two con­nect­ed in this pro­to-super­group that includ­ed, writes rock his­to­ri­an Nick War­bur­ton, “sev­er­al notable musi­cians who lat­er found fame with the likes of Buf­fa­lo Spring­field and Step­pen­wolf.” “It would be a gross over­sight,” writes War­bur­ton, “to view the group as mere­ly a foot­note to Rick James and Neil Young’s careers.”

It would also be a mis­take to con­sid­er The Mynah Birds a minor league out­fit. As you can hear above in “I’ve Got You In My Soul” (top), “It’s My Time” (above—co-written by Young and James), and “I’ll Wait For­ev­er” (below), this was seri­ous rock and roll, with a loose, garage-rock jan­gle and raw, soul­ful vocal melodies. The Mynah Birds were also, accord­ing to Jim­my McDo­nough, seri­ous show­men. McDo­nough describes their onstage pres­ence in his Neil Young biog­ra­phy Shakey:

The Mynah Birds—in black leather jack­ets, yel­low turtle­necks and boots—had quite a sur­re­al scene going…. Those lucky enough to see any of the band’s few gigs say they were elec­tri­fy­ing. ‘Neil would stop play­ing lead, do a harp solo, throw the har­mon­i­ca way up in the air and Ricky would catch it and con­tin­ue the solo.’

This is a far cry from the scruffy, earnest Young of Har­vest or CSNY or even the Les Paul-wield­ing jam-rock­er of Crazy Horse and his 90s grunge revival peri­od (and more recent Psy­che­del­ic Pill). But the folky leads in his gui­tar work with James’ band hint at his lat­er incar­na­tions.

Is it a stretch to imag­ine James fronting a band of white Cana­di­an rock­ers? Young remem­bers the dri­ven Amer­i­can singer—who crossed the bor­der to avoid his draft assignment—as “a lit­tle bit touchy, dominating—but a good guy.” He also told McDo­nough that James was drawn pri­mar­i­ly to the sound of the Rolling Stones, and brought the rest of the band around: “We got more and more into how cool the Stones were. How sim­ple they were and how cool it was.” James had them play “Get Off My Cloud” and “Satisfaction”—before the braids, cocaine, and sequins, Rick James “fan­cied him­self the next Mick Jag­ger.”

Unfor­tu­nate­ly for the band, U.S. author­i­ties caught up with James, Motown shelved the tapes, and they were nev­er released. Discouraged—Young told MOJO Mag­a­zine in 1995—he “moved instead towards acoustic music and imme­di­ate­ly became very intro­spec­tive and musi­cal­ly-inward. That’s the begin­ning of that whole side to my music.” Young got in his hearse and head­ed for the States, James did his stint in the Navy, and the rest is, well, you know…. But the sound of The Mynah Birds lived on, per­haps, in at least one Neil Young song. His 1967 “Mr. Soul” with Buf­fa­lo Spring­field, below, is clas­sic six­ties rock and soul with a riff lift­ed right from the Stones.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Great Sto­ry: How Neil Young Intro­duced His Clas­sic 1972 Album Har­vest to Gra­ham Nash

Neil Young Busk­ing in Glas­gow, 1976: The Sto­ry Behind the Footage

See Neil Young Per­form Clas­sic Songs in 1971 BBC Con­cert: “Old Man,” “Heart of Gold” & More

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.