Saturday, July 16, 2016

The Dissection And Reconstruction Of Music From The Past As Performed By The Inmates Of Lalo Schifrin's Demented Ensemble As A Tribute To The Memory Of The Marquis De Sade

Why, lookee here, it's our super-swell pals from the Growing Bored For A Living Blog. You know, the ones who slipped us those nutty "Sesame Street Disco" albums. Let's find out what those crazy kids up to now:

Hello, all. Been 6 months since I've had something cool to drop in the M4M cauldron. Found this in a cobwebbed corner of the Internet long ago. Needless to say, the title jumped out at me. Quite a handle, huh?

So, what is it? Well, with a title like that, you'd expect it to  be someone screaming into a piano soundboard while some other Mad Hatter banged a pan and recited snippets from "Philosophy In the Bedroom" or "The 120 Days"? Something like the audio equivalent of watching El Topo, maybe?

No, it's actually just a jazz album, and I admit one that's not near scary enough for a title like that! Mr. Schifrin  was known at the time for his jazzy film scores like The Cincinnati Kid or the Mission: Impossible theme. He doesn't stray too far from those roots. What he does do though is take aspects of 18th century music and apply them to a swinging, mid-60's jazz context.

You hear the gentle opening guitar notes of "Renaissance" and you can imagine them being played on a harpsichord. When an actual harpsichord shows up on "Beneath The Weeping Willow Shade", it seems appropriate under those period-style vocals. And then when that track kicks into gear, it still works. And man, on "Versailles Promenade", the guy is working that harpsichord like Bud Powell!

It's brave that the title track, "Marquis De Sade", has the most pop melody of the whole set. Imagine seeing that song on a hit parade! "Blues For Johann Sebastian Bach" is a great piano-led swinger. "Bossa Antique" is a dark little number, reminding me more than a little of Angelo Badalamenti's work for David Lynch.

Putting this in a kind of historical context - this album came out in 1966. Ten or fifteen years before, De Sade had gotten his first major reprinting and critical reassessment in his native France. The play Marat/Sade had opened in Germany in 1963. In fact, this album's long title is a homage to the full title of that play -


So, in a way De Sade was kind of an icon of the underground/avant-garde back then. How he inspired this well-played but still mainstream jazz album is beyond me. The Sixties were a strange time all over, I guess.

But this is a swinging little oddity! Put out by Verve Records, produced by Creed Taylor, recorded by the great Rudy Van Gelder. Was put out as one of those Limited Edition CDs, now runs for $100 or more. Files sound great @320 Kbps, and also includes full art.

Thanks for checking this out, and as always feel free to poke around Growing Bored For A Living. We try to keep it eclectic, something I learned from our esteemed Mr. Fab here at Music For Maniacs. Stay crazy, everybody. The Marquis did....

The Dissection And Reconstruction Of Music From The Past As Performed By The Inmates Of Lalo Schifrin's Demented Ensemble As A Tribute To The Memory Of The Marquis De Sade


8 comments:

Your Pal Doug said...

Excellent! I had an old poor quality rip. This is one of Schifrin's best.

Anonymous said...

Seeing this title I was at first certain it was an album by Nurse with Wound.. then after a little recollection I remember it was listed a long time ago in the Guinness Book of World Records as holding the record for the all-time longest album title. Pretty certain it's not anymore, due to all these crazy kids nowadays & their crazy-ness

Anonymous said...

(Brian, original poster).

Glad you guys like this. I didn't know about the Guinness thing. I'm willing to bet Fiona Apple's one title trumps it.

For those that are curious, I found this on a site called Song365. It's a big MP3 site that's organized by artists and albums. It's a big mystery site (no webmaster messages or anything). They have to change their suffixes periodically, and I suggest you approach it with a good popup blocker, but once you learn how to use it, it's a great resource!

Not trying to stump for it, but if you have an old vinyl rip of something, like Our Pal Doug up there, poke around that site too.

Mr Fab said...

Yeah, I was thinking Fiona Apple too, but when I looked it up, the wiki sez that Chumbawumba took the Apple challenge and came up with an even longer (and certainly better) title.

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for posting the album. I was seeking for a long time.

Gina rani said...

good posts on this blogs

Lacy McQueen said...

This is so genius thanks alot for posting this it made my day.

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