Short Circuits - Ruth White

 

Satie: Gymnopedie No. 1

Short Circuits

Electronic Realizations And Performances by Ruth White

Angel S-36042

1970

From the back cover: Electronic composer and innovator Ruth White is considered among today's most gifted arbiters of what is termed "the new music". Formally educated in piano and composition (she has three degrees from Pennsylvania's Carnegie Tech), Miss White discusses her work in her Southern California studio: "I do not have a formal classical electronic background – that is self-taught. In fact, I was careful not to study electronics with anyone. Because I have been working in recording for many years, I felt that there was a directness of approach that I wanted to develop which was totally missing from the electronic scene in classical music." How effectively her medium has conveyed her message may be judged by the critical comment awarded her own original electronic compositions.

Writing of "Seven Trumps From The Tarot Cards," a completely electronic score reflecting her impressions of the occult, Donal Henahan commended Miss White in The New York Times for her "musical inventiveness and electronic sophistication." From Paul Eberie in the Los Angeles Free Press: "Miss White has explored electronics to find a new instrumentation of voices for her compositions, and has conceived it as an extension of the music of the past, rather than a break from it, or a renunciation."

"Pinions" was commissioned by dance choreographer Eugene Loring for the University of California. After the 1986 premiere, the Los Angeles Times commented: "...a really exciting, organically musical, electronic score by Ruth White. Not only the soloists but all the participants seemed to draw heat from this score...". Flowers Of Evil," an electronic music setting for the poems of Baudelaire utilizing the human voice (her own) as an instrument, represents to Free Press critic the evolution of music."

"In addition to the composition mentioned above which have involved her in the fields of choreography and spoken word among others, Miss White has become increasingly active in the arts most closely allied to electronics: television, motion pictures and audio-visual cassettes.

For this, her next album on Angel, Ruth White has electronically realized a selection of favorite classical encore pieces. "The composers involved," she comments, "were, in a very real sense, trying to paint pictures with the means of their times. For example, Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Flight Of The Bumblebee' is a visual, as well as an audio experience, which I have transformed with the means of our times. The Satie is an ethereal motif enveloped in electronic voices... the Debussy, one of my particular favorites, is a spatial experience. The Shostakovich 'Polka' is an electric slapstick reinterpretation of the composer's own slapstick. In each case the idea is a musical one transformed electronically."

In the following note, Ruth White talks about "Short Circuits" in greater detail: 

One day, I found my old piano score of "Flight Of The Bumblebee." I remembered my early musical experience; at the same time. I had a flash of new insight. Why not play this music again? Why not perform it electrically and bring it to new life with electronically conceived orchestrations? For instance, why not shape a wave to simulate a pitched "Bee" sound?

Later, other ideas occurred to me. An important one was that of the steady or almost metronomically paced rhythm. A constant forward flow felt right for these performances, and it was right for the structuring of electronic music. For this reason, there are none of the usual ritards, no momentary or gradual slowing (or speedings).

For a large part of the album, I used keyboard music, as I did not wish to be bound by preconceived orchestral ideas. Instead, I wrote new lines, newt types of counterpoints that often took advantage of my electronic means...  humorous, sliding oscillators; a rapidly flitting butterfly line, etc.

The entire album was created using the instruments in my studio: several electric and electronic keyboards, a Moog synthesizer, multichannel tape recorders, speed changers, reverberation units, etc. I did a lot of processing of sounds, so performance of an entire piece was seldom a straight, real time layering of track upon track.

The best thing I can say of any work is that I am sorry when it is finished. In the case of "Short Circuits," I can truly say that I had as much fun with this music... even more... the second time around. – Ruth White

Rimsky-Korsakov: The Flight Of The Bumblebee

Satie: Gymnopedie No. 1

Debussy: The Snow Is Dancing

White: Variations On Couperin's Roudeau

Greig: The Butterfly

Verdi: Anvil Chorus

Scarlatti: Tempo Di Ballo

Chopin: Etude In G Flat

C.P.E. Bach: Solfeffietto

Chopin: Prelude In E Major

Shostakovich: Polka From "The Age Of Gold"

Bizet: The Ball

Scarlatti: Sonata In G

Albeniz: Asturias

Love Songs - Dinah Shore

 

I Wish I Didn't Love You So

Love Songs

Sung By Dinah Shore

Photo: Globe/Bernard

Harmony HL 7099

A Product of Columbia Records

A Cottage For Sale

Once In A While

Mad About The Boy

I'm Yours

It All Depends On You

Dream A Little Dream Of Me

They Didn't Believe Me

Scarlet Ribbons

I Wish I Didn't Love You So

I'll Alway Love You

Swinging The Bard - The Ken Jones Orchestra

 

St. Valentine's Blues

Nine For Bacon

Swinging The Bard

The Ken Jones Orchestra

The Elizabethan Consort Of Viols - Directed by Dennis Nesbitt

Elaine Delmar

Musical Direction: Ken Jones

Recording Engineer: Adrian Kerridge 

Cover: Loring Eutemey

A record supervision (London) production under the personal supervision of Denis Preston

Geoffrey Emmott's Recorder Consort

Atco Records 33-171

1964

From the back cover: Music seems to have been more than a passing fancy for Shakespeare. Reference after reference to the art keep cropping up in the plays. "And certain stars shot madly from their spheres to hear the sea-maid's music," run two of the less exalted lines in "A Midsummers-Night Dream," and while there are no sea-maids on this LP (Miss Elaine Delmar is strictly a land-lubber) one hopes that Bard would still have bent an appreciative ear to these musical offerings. The performances are, for a start, chock-full of surprises. The use of viols, for instance, rather than the more conventional – and more sentimental – violins, results in a purity of texture that spurs Shake Keane into producing some of his happiest solos. Similarly, Elaine Delmar sings in the manner of the 1960s, but her voice is blended with the sounds of recorders and harpsichord. This is, in fact, a light-hearted yet essentially serious attempt to honoring William Shakespeare.

The Overture is the work of David Lindup and Leonard Salzedo, two composers whose previous collaboration – Rendezvous – called upon the combined resources of the London Philharmonic and the Johnny Dankworth orchestras. This time the work is very different, although once again two ensembles are involved. "We took a 16th century lute tune called – improbable though it seems – Mititis Dump," says Salzedo, "and we used the ground-bass scheme as the basis of the three sections. "The opening section deploys the Consort of Viols in such a way as to suggest a concerto gross; later on Shake Keane and Roy Willox (on flute) both take solos. Salzedo scored the passages for viols, incidentally, and Lindup handled the big band parts. David Mack's Shake On A Barre was suggested by the antics of Shake Keane – six-feet-four, brass-player and poet, who came to London from the Caribbean in the early 1950s – during a rehearsal in the nearby dance-studios of the Ballet Rambert. Two other pieces are the work of a couple of London's busiest jazz musicians: Johnny Hawksworth, bassist for many years with Ted Heath's orchestra, and Stan Tracey, pianist at the Ronnie Scott Club, who has worked with a vast number of visiting American jazz musicians, from Stan Getz to Roland Kirk. Hawksworth's In A Stratford Garden (orchestrated by Ken Jones) features the trumpet playing of Eddie Blair, while Tracey's decidedly Ellingtonish composition, Puck, has Kenny Baker using a plunger mute to conjure bizarreries from his instrument.

No Shakespearean venture would be complete without some mention of the various pretenders to the authorship of the plays. This LP restricts itself to three of the likeliest – Bacon, Marlowe and the Earl of Oxford. The last-named is the subject of Oxford Blue, the work of Ken Jones, a piece which moves, paradoxically enough, in waltz-time, although the Earl himself would have been much more at home with a pavan or galliard. The favorite contender provides a title for one of the most intriguing compositions on the record, John Mayer's Nine For Bacon. ("It's built on a passacaglia theme." says Mayer, "Five note which reappear in various forms"). Scored for nine instruments, it is also an example of the Nonet, a species about which Dr. Percy Scholes declares, rather curtly: "Such compositions are comparatively rare." Lastly there is Ray Premru's setting of Christopher Marlowe's Live With Me And Be My Love (more properly known as The Passionate Sheepheard To His Love), which demonstrates the great poets can write pop-song lyrics just as snappily as the denizens of Tin Pan Alley.

The remaining songs – all strictly by Shakespeare – range from Leonard Salzedo's torch St. Valentine's Blues (sung by the deranged Ophelia in Act IV, Scene V of "Hamlet") to David Lindup's Fye On Sinful Fantasy (from "The Merry Wives Of Windsor") and Leon Young's Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind (From "As You Like It"). The trickiest job of all, thought, was undertaken by Sandy Brown, one of Britain's saltiest jazz clarinetists, who set about Sonnet No. 18 – iambic pentameter, octave, sestet and all. ("The problem was to spread the fourteen lines over 32 bars," explains Sandy. "Luckily the part with the greatest density of language and meaning the slowest bit – if I can put it that way, fitted neatly into the middle-eight"). All of the songs, incidentally, were orchestrated by Leonard Salzedo.

The rest - to lean back upon a familiar quotation – is silence. But meantime our company of players – trumpets Shake Keane, Eddie Blair and Kenny Baker, the delectable Miss Delmar, musical director Ken Jones and the several composers, arrangers, copyists, musicians, recording engineers and other rude mechanicals – have paid their tribute to Albion's mightiest poet. No gadzookery, no hey-sonny-nonnying, just honest, imaginative music. The Bard, one suspects, would have felt flattered. Even Mr. W.H. and the Dark Lady might have tapped a toe – Charles Fox

From Billboard - February 20, 1965: Jazz fans will enjoy the Ken Jones big band interpretations of Bardsville. The entire album is highly imaginative. In addition, Elaine Delmar's cool vocals with the Elizabethan Consort of Violas and Geoffrey Emmott's Recorder Consort are all contributive to the light-hearted yet highly creative attempt at honoring Shakespeare.

Overture: Strike Up The Band

St. Valentine's Blues

Shake On A Barre

Live With Me And Be My Love

In A Stratford Garden

Blow, Blow Thou Winter End

Nine For Bacon

Fye On Sinful Fantasy

Oxford Blue

Shall I Compare Thee?

Puck

The Guitar Sounds Of Buddy Merrill

 

Poinciana

The Guitar Sounds Of Buddy Merrill

Cover Design: Mike Hogan

Cover Photo: Bruce Zemby

Accent Records AC 5010 MLP

1965

From the back cover: Buddy Merrill is a meteor talent. In "The Guitar Sounds Of Buddy Merrill" he displays his skill as a composer, arranger and performer. In the standards, Fascinating Rhythm, Caravan, Invitation, Malaguena and Love Makes The World Go 'Round, he combines creative arranging forms with his amazing guitar technique and the result is a refreshing new approach to these great numbers. The Worm and Echoette are originals written by Buddy and again they reflect his all around talent as a composer and arranger.

In this album Bubby Merrill displays his "sound on sound" technique. The "sound on sound" formula is not new, however Buddy's use of it is a completely new dimension. His use of a solid "bottom" rock beat as a foundation for the beautiful flowing sounds in the high registers of the guitar give him a combination of SOUND and BEAT that is both artistic and commercial at the same time.

Lawrence Welk has featured Buddy as solo guitarist for the past nine years. During this time Buddy has been responsible for some of the outstanding arrangements that have made the Welk band so popular. Up to the present time, however, Buddy has not been exposed to the public with the sound that he is identified with in this first Accent album.

Sound engineering is usually considered to be "off limits" for the performing musician but Buddy Merrill combines his knowledge of this field with his musical background to produce the we believe will be a new dimension in the recording world.

This is not a "jazz" album nor is it meant to be a "mood" album; it is simply, "The Guitar Sounds Of Buddy Merrill." – Scott Seely, President / Accent Records

Also from the back cover: Buddy Merrill designed his own special four position, three channel mixer, which was custom built by Studio Electronics. This is used in conjunction with two Ampex 300, three channel recorders.

The Worm

Hava Nagila

El Cid

Fascination Rhythm 

Love Makes The World Go 'Round

Caravan

Poinciana

Milano

Echoette

Busy Bee

Invitation

Malaguena

La Paloma

Misirlou

80 Minutes In Lover's Lane

 

Moonlight In Vermont

Deep Night

80 Minutes In Lover's Lane

24 Exciting New Sounds By 24 Great Popular Artists

Produced Exclusively For The Lane Company, Altavista, Virginia

Makers Of Sweetheart Chests – "The gift starts the home"

Columbia Records XTV 28701(2, 3 & 4)

When I Fall In Love - Rhonda Fleming

Gigi - Paul Weston

I Talk To The Trees - Percy Faith with Peter Hanley

Remember Me In Your Dreams - Frank Sinatra

Beautiful Music To Love By - Doris Day

My Melancholy Baby - Harry James

Love Is Just Around The Corner - Don Cherry

Moonlight In Vermont - Jerri Adams with Percy Faith

Strangers In The Dark - Xavier Cugat with Abbe Lane

If I Loved You - Harry James

Close Your Eyes - Rosemary Clooney with Percy Faith

Poor Butterfly - Benny Goodman

The Girl That I Marry - Norman Luboff

Soon - Les Elgart

For Heaven's Sake - Erroll Garner

Enchantment - Otto Cesana

Without My Lover - Mitch Miller

Love Walked In - Hi-Lo's

Begin The Beguine - Sammy Kaye

I Love You - Michel Legrand

Moonlight Becomes You - Paul Weston

Lover Man - Claude Thornhill

Deep Night - Art Van Damme Quintet

The Man I Love - Percy Faith