Album: Blood, Sweat & Tears 
Year Released: 1968
Composer/Artist(s): Blood, Sweat & Tears
Record Label: Columbia  
Genre: Jazz-Rock

It has been awhile since I last wrote on here. Rest assured, I did not forget about my record collection. Let us continue this exploration with Blood, Sweat & Tears: a rock group based in New York City that incorporates multiple musical elements-- primarily, jazz and (occasionally) classical music. This band must be understood as a supergroup, active since the late 1960s and continuing into the 2020s, with different members over the decades. The 1968 Grammy-winning self-titled album featured the following nine members in the band at that time, many of whom also helped to arrange the ten tracks on this album:

• James Thomas Fielder: Bass
• Steve Katz: Guitar, Vocals
• Chuck Winfield: Trumpet, Flugelhorn
• Lew Soloff: Trumpet
• Bobby Colomby: Drums
• Dick Halligan: Keyboards, Flute
• Fred Lipsius: Saxophone
• Jerry Hyman: Trombone
• David Clayton-Thomas: Lead Vocals

• Of the tracks that stand out to me, let me begin with “Variations on a Theme by Eric Satie (1st and 2nd Movements)"—This track opens the album with an arrangement of the Gymnopedie No. 1 by French composer  Eric Satie (1866-1925)-- who also more commonly went by the name Erik Satie. In this case, Blood, Sweat & Tears focuses on using a fragment of the opening melody and expanding it with flutes brass, drums, and what sounds like a “flange” effect. This piece also serves as a cyclical end to the album, because the first movement reappears as the the final track… with the sound of footsteps (The album credits a Lucy Angle for providing that effect.)

• “And When I Die”—The band experiments on this track with what sounds like a combination between Gospel/Spiritual and Country Western music. The lyrics and thematic material, on the other hand, appear to contradict this musical backdrop and can come off as blasphemous for some listeners: specifically, the overall approach to not fearing death.
• “God Bless the Child”—This is a cover of the Billie Holiday jazz standard—a song which Holiday had recorded several times. The version by Blood, Sweat & Tears is radically different in terms of tempo, vocal delivery, and instrumentation. The pacing is slower in the beginning and the end, with a slight tempo increase at the “bridge” and David Clayton-Thomas sings the lyrics in a soulful manner. The real surprise with this cover comes in the instrumental middle section that unexpectedly incorporates Latin Jazz at a faster tempo. While that inclusion seems rather random and out of place, it somehow works.
• “Spinning Wheel”—I find this track interesting not just because of the incorporation of brass and drums. Like “God Bless the Child,” “Spinning Wheel” also changes the musical mood: specifically, towards the end where the ensemble imitates a carousel, followed by random banter and laughter.
• “Blues—Part II” This track is more like a long series of improvisations with solos for organ, drums, and saxophone. David Clayton-Thomas also sings towards the end, belting out vocalization reminiscent of soul music

Given all those details, can the self-titled album appeal to more contemporary audiences? That depends. This record functions like a snapshot of late 1960s rock music. Those who are unfamiliar with Blood, Sweat & Tears should check out their hit song “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy” (also on this album). There is also a recent documentary that explores the musical career of Blood, Sweat & Tears: both the good and bad moments. The band also has their music available via streaming services. One the other hand,  not everyone has liked their music. Some listeners today might also feel uneasy about instances on the album that could come off as cultural appropriation. Again, the best way to interpret the work is as a product of its time.  

Album: The Music from Peter Gunn
Year Released: 1959 (Recorded in 1958)
Composer/Artist: Henry Mancini (1924-1994)
Record Label: RCA Victor
Genre: Television Show Soundtrack

To kick things off with this record collection, let us go back several decades to the late 1950s to one of the most important soundtracks in both popular music and entertainment culture. This soundtrack became the first record to win the Grammy Award for “Album of the Year” in 1959. The opening theme music from this album has been covered by rock bands and featured in the 1983 arcade game Spy Hunter. The record that I am discussing today is The Music from Peter Gunn from 1959: composed and conducted by Heny Mancini.
 
Allow me to give some context before exploring the music. This album serves as the soundtrack to the television Crime Noir Drama Peter Gunn (1958-1961), which aired on both NBC and ABC through its three seasons. Created by Blake Edwards, also known for directing the original Pink Panther movies (which Mancini also scored, among any other films throughout his career), the plot for Peter Gunn is quite straightforward. A police officer and a detective team up to solve crimes. The show is currently available in syndication on the Tubi website and app. I should also note that Peter Gunn is an audacious program (for its time) because of the onscreen violence and mature thematic material permissible in the 1950s.
 
Jazz music serves as the central component to The Music from Peter Gunn. According to the album liner notes written by the show’s creator, Blake Edwards wanted jazz music reflective of modern times (the 1950s) that also complemented the mysterious atmosphere of his drama.  Another interesting aspect of the show stems from how Edwards also wanted the music featured in the program to be performed live instead prerecorded in a studio and dubbed. This point becomes very clear in the first episode (“The Kill.”), The orchestrated jazz heard on both the soundtrack and the show do not present neutered versions of the genre. In The Music from Peter Gunn, Henry Mancini uses the jazz formal structure in tracks that often span from two to four minutes. He applies a melodic theme (often called a “head” in jazz terminology) and moments of  shared improvisation in the ensemble mainly consisting of piano, bass, guitar, brass, solo saxophone, and percussion. The iconic theme music that opens the soundtrack and show prove an exception, because it based more on 1950s rock and roll idioms.
 
Does The Music from Peter Gunn still hold up in the 2020s? My answer to that question is both “Yes” and “No.” On the on the one hand, the album could serve as an introduction of sorts to jazz music for large ensembles through tracks like “Sorta Blue,” “Dreamsville,” and “Fallout!” Some musicians might be slightly annoyed by instances that sound like the pattern infamously known as “The Lick.” The also album functions as a sound artifact of 1950s pop culture and could be an acquired taste for a few people. Some parts of the album, like the title to the last track (“Not from Dixie”) would probably raise some eyebrows given recent social debates. I should add that More Music from Peter Gunn (1959), which I also have, functions a companion album that includes more tracks heard on the show. As of 2010, the Library of Congress archived The Music from Peter Gunn for its historical and cultural significance as popular music. Listeners can access The Music from Peter Gunn, which was re-released in 2019 under the Digital Gramophone label, through digital music streaming services. 

Over the past years, I have discussed audio archiving and preservation. I do that because it is a topic that piques my interest, especially when researching the different types of tangible audio recording materials versus digital restoration. Starting this month, I will add new content to this blog that will showcase the audio recording collection that I have amassed in my studio. For those who don’t know, I collect vinyl and shellac records. I became fascinated with that form of audio technology for several reasons. The first was that I listened to records while growing up and still have some of the albums from my parents’ collection from the 1960s and 70s, in addition to other albums that I found or had been donated to me. The second reason stems from reading books like Capturing Sound: How Technology Has Changed Music by Mark Katz (2004), which devote time to talking about the impact of records and their overall “warm” analog sound quality.
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Much of what you will see in this record collection covers myriad genres: everything from classical, to rock and pop, to film soundtracks, foreign language/international, electronic, spoken word, and more. Of course, categorizing the collection in such a subjective way is not all that simple. I have found that some of the albums that I currently possess illustrate different musical subgenres. I have many albums of twentieth-century classical pieces that represent different compositional approaches throughout the era (neoclassical, serialism, jazz-inspired, postmodern, etc.). In other instances,  multiple genres collide to form an unexpected aural experience. This has been the case for some 1960s and 70s rock and jazz albums in the collection that combine instances of classical or funk music. To make these posts more interesting (and to spare the audience from boredom), I will refrain from talking at length about categorizing all the records that I have—something that has become a daunting process. I more interested in providing “my take” on these albums, their possible rarity, and whether they are currently accessible to the public through digital formats.