Music video essay mae­stro Poly­phon­ic is back. What I dig about his videos is that he takes on some of the true warhors­es of mod­ern pop­u­lar music and man­ages to find some­thing new to say. Or at least he presents famil­iar sto­ries in a new and mod­ern way to an audi­ence who may be hear­ing ELO, Queen, or Neil Young for the first time.

His lat­est upload explores Dave Brubeck’s ground­break­ing jazz album Time Out. This is an album that reg­u­lar­ly tops best-of lists, gets reis­sued con­stant­ly, and is so ubiq­ui­tous in some cir­cles that it’s hard, like Led Zeppelin’s fourth album, to hear the album with fresh ears.

Poly­phon­ic touch­es on some­thing right at the begin­ning of the video that deserves a full video essay of its own–the State Department’s mis­sion to send Amer­i­can jazz musi­cians around the world as cul­tur­al ambas­sadors. This is a part of his­to­ry that has reced­ed from mem­o­ry, but had a major influ­ence not just on Brubeck, but so many records at that time. Brubeck joined Ben­ny Good­man, Louis Arm­strong, and Dizzy Gille­spie on a musi­cal tour that reached many coun­tries behind the Iron Cur­tain, and were able to cri­tique America’s racist his­to­ry while also pro­mot­ing its musi­cal cul­ture. (There’s a fine PBS doc­u­men­tary on the mis­sion avail­able here, if your region sup­ports the video.)

But for the pur­pos­es of this video essay, and regard­ing Brubeck’s career, it was the polyrhythms and folk music that he heard while trav­el­ing through coun­tries like Turkey (from which he devel­oped “Blue Ron­do a la Turk”) that remained with him on his return.

Time Out was Brubeck’s four­teenth album for Colum­bia Records, but his break­through. Up to that point he and his quar­tet had released a num­ber of live albums record­ed at col­leges (which pro­mot­ed a safe but hip stu­dious kind of jazz) and sev­er­al albums of jazz cov­ers, such as Dave Digs Dis­ney. But Time Out was a ful­ly formed con­cept album of sorts: an explo­ration into time sig­na­tures that jazz hadn’t real­ly touched yet.

As Poly­phon­ic points out, Joe Morel­lo, Brubeck’s drum­mer, was indeed well versed in com­pli­cat­ed time sig­na­tures from his clas­si­cal back­ground as a vio­lin­ist. It was Morel­lo who exper­i­ment­ed with a groove in 5/4 time that became the back­bone of “Take Five.” Brubeck knew a good thing when he heard it and gives Morel­lo one of the best solos of the entire LP.

Best of all, Time Out is one those clas­sic albums because of how it mix­es the exper­i­men­tal with the com­mer­cial, a hard feat in any era, but even more impres­sive in that best of all jazz years, 1959. (Brubeck con­tin­ued to explore time sig­na­tures on this album’s sequel Time Fur­ther Out, which is also rec­om­mend­ed).

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Pak­istani Musi­cians Play an Enchant­i­ng Ver­sion of Dave Brubeck’s Jazz Clas­sic, “Take Five”

Louis Arm­strong Plays His­toric Cold War Con­certs in East Berlin & Budapest (1965)

Remem­ber­ing Jazz Leg­end Dave Brubeck (RIP) with a Very Touch­ing Musi­cal Moment

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the artist inter­view-based FunkZone Pod­cast and is the pro­duc­er of KCR­W’s Curi­ous Coast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.

In terms of brand recog­ni­tion, one has to admit it is remark­able that the name Zildjian—stamped on mil­lions of cym­bals worldwide—has such wide cul­tur­al cur­ren­cy. The prod­uct this com­pa­ny makes is not one most peo­ple get very close to out­side of a drum kit in a grade school music room. You nev­er see Zild­jian adver­tise­ments, unless you are a musi­cian, and you won’t encounter a Zild­jian cym­bal at your local all-in-one big box store. Yet Zild­jian cym­bals might even be more famous than icon­ic brands of elec­tric gui­tars like Fend­er and Gib­son or amps like Mar­shall and Vox.

Why is that? It’s easy, the com­pa­ny was found­ed 400 years ago in Con­stan­tino­ple and has remained in the Zild­jian fam­i­ly since an alchemist named Avedis was giv­en the sur­name by Sul­tan Osman II in the ear­ly 17th cen­tu­ry. In all that time, Mozart praised Zild­jians (then just called “Turk­ish cym­bals”), they appeared at London’s Great Exhi­bi­tion, and they have been essen­tial to the kits of jazz and rock drum­mers for as long as both gen­res have exist­ed. It will nev­er be pos­si­ble to buy this kind of pub­lic­i­ty.

How has Zild­jian, who incor­po­rat­ed in the U.S. in 1929, stayed in busi­ness so long and con­tin­ued to main­tain such a rep­u­ta­tion for qual­i­ty? It’s all down, they say, to a secret recipe, passed down from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion, descend­ed from Avedis him­self, whose name graces the Avedis Vartere­sian Melt­ing Room, where Zild­jian cast­ings are made. You can watch what hap­pens to those cast­ings in the fas­ci­nat­ing 10-minute video above. “Only 4 fac­to­ry employ­ees and the own­ers of the com­pa­ny are allowed inside” the Melt­ing Room, notes the video’s YouTube page, “due to their knowl­edge of the ‘Zild­jian Secret.’”

We do not learn the secret recipe, nor do we learn how a trade secret can be kept for 400 years, but we do see Zild­jians heat­ed, rolled out, shaped, cut, ham­mered, lath­ed, fin­ished, and, final­ly, “stamped with the Zild­jian Logo as well as the model/size of the cym­bal.” It’s gen­er­al­ly pret­ty cool to watch unre­mark­able, every­day prod­ucts go through the many stages of a fac­to­ry pro­duc­tion process. Watch­ing the Zild­jian process adds a lay­er of his­tor­i­cal leg­end and intrigue, and the allure of see­ing raw mate­ri­als trans­formed into objects of visu­al and aur­al beau­ty.

See Zildjian’s YouTube page for a time­stamped com­men­tary on each step in the pro­duc­tion.

via Laugh­ing Squid

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How Zild­jian Cym­bals Were Cre­at­ed by an Alchemist in the Ottoman Empire, Cir­ca 1618

Vis­it an Online Col­lec­tion of 61,761 Musi­cal Instru­ments from Across the World

The Neu­ro­science of Drum­ming: Researchers Dis­cov­er the Secrets of Drum­ming & The Human Brain

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

As Josh Jones observed yes­ter­day, Miles Davis’ leg­endary jazz album Kind of Blue turns 60 this week. Today, we want to keep the par­ty going a lit­tle longer and fea­ture this video essay from Sweet­wa­ter. They write:

In 1959, Miles Davis went to Colum­bia Records in Man­hat­tan to forge a new style of music impro­vi­sa­tion. With the com­pa­ny of oth­er leg­endary musi­cians, like John Coltrane and Bill Evans, Kind of Blue was record­ed; the great­est sell­ing jazz album of all time. Miles chose to take an inter­pre­tive dance approach to impro­vi­sa­tion, devel­op­ing ideas and using space to cre­ate his unique style. This new style of modal jazz pushed musi­cians to express them­selves through melod­ic cre­ativ­i­ty. Take a look into the his­to­ry and music the­o­ry of Kind of Blue with Sweet­wa­ter’s Jacob Dupre (piano/trumpet), accom­pa­nied by Michael Pat­ter­son (bass) and Sean Parr (drums). Karl Stab­nau (alto sax) per­forms the solo on “Blues For Alice,” as played by Char­lie Park­er.

For a more in-depth study of the time­less album, read Ash­ley Kah­n’s well-reviewed book, Kind of Blue: The Mak­ing of the Miles Davis Mas­ter­piece.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Miles Davis Icon­ic 1959 Album Kind of Blue Turns 60: Revis­it the Album That Changed Amer­i­can Music

1959: The Year That Changed Jazz

Kind of Blue: How Miles Davis Changed Jazz

Her­bie Han­cock Explains the Big Les­son He Learned From Miles Davis: Every Mis­take in Music, as in Life, Is an Oppor­tu­ni­ty

The Influ­ence of Miles Davis Revealed with Data Visu­al­iza­tion: For His 90th Birth­day Today

In a very short span of time, the descrip­tor “elec­tron­ic music” has come to sound as over­ly broad as “clas­si­cal.” But where what we (often incor­rect­ly) call clas­si­cal devel­oped over hun­dreds of years, elec­tron­ic music pro­lif­er­at­ed into hun­dreds of frac­tal forms in only decades. A far steep­er qual­i­ty curve may have to do with the ease of its cre­ation, but it’s also a fac­tor of this accel­er­at­ed evo­lu­tion.

Music made by machines has trans­formed since its ear­ly 20th-cen­tu­ry begin­nings from obscure avant-garde exper­i­ments to mas­sive­ly pop­u­lar gen­res of glob­al dance and pop. This pro­lif­er­a­tion, notes Ishkur—designer of Ishkur’s Guide to Elec­tron­ic Music—has­n’t always been to the good. Take what he calls “trend­whor­ing,” a phe­nom­e­non that spawns dozens of new works and sub­gen­era in short order, though it’s arguable whether many of them should exist.

Ishkur, describes this process below in an excerpt from his eru­dite, sar­don­ic “Fre­quent­ly Unasked Ques­tions”:

If fart nois­es were sud­den­ly pop­u­lar, each scene would trend­whore it with fart­step, fart­core, tech­fart, far­t­house, fart trance, etc. It is espe­cial­ly notice­able in clas­sic tracks that are remixed into mod­ern gen­res, which some might con­sid­er sacre­li­gious. A good exam­ple is the Dream Trance hit Robert Miles — Chil­dren, in which there is now a Hard­style ver­sion, a Dutch House ver­sion, a McProg ver­sion, a Euro­trance ver­sion, a Goa Trance ver­sion, and even a Snap ver­sion and a shit­ty Brostep ver­sion. None of these gen­res exist­ed when the orig­i­nal song came out in 1995.

Vicious­ly irrev­er­ent tone and com­pletist atten­tion to detail are typ­i­cal through­out this ency­clo­pe­dia, an inter­ac­tive Flash flow­chart that chron­i­cles the devel­op­ment of 100s of gen­res, sub­gen­res, micro­gen­res, etc., with stream­ing musi­cal exam­ples of every one. It’s a deeply researched, and con­tin­u­al­ly expand­ing project first cre­at­ed by Ishkur, aka Ken­neth John Tay­lor, in 1999. In 2003, Tay­lor updat­ed and expand­ed the project and moved it to its cur­rent loca­tion. He has con­tin­u­ous­ly updat­ed it since then.

The record­ed exam­ples on Taylor’s time­line cur­rent­ly span around 80 years, from 1937 to 2019—a tiny drop in the great ocean of musi­cal his­to­ry. Nonethe­less, the music shows how rich and com­plex elec­tron­ic music his­to­ry tru­ly is, despite its potential—as its devel­op­men­tal speed (and tem­pos) increased—to pro­duce dis­pos­able, deriv­a­tive com­po­si­tions as much as chart-burn­ing clas­sics and inno­v­a­tive, mind-expand­ing cre­ative work.

As you zoom into the chart and click on the dots next to each genre, you’ll have the option to pull up Taylor’s wit­ty guides, as infor­ma­tive as they are unspar­ing­ly crit­i­cal. He explains “Chill Out,” for exam­ple, as a grab-bag term for elec­tron­ic easy lis­ten­ing that “goes down easy like a fresh glass of cool lemon­ade or light­ly sprin­kled vanil­la sun­dae…. Not only did it appeal to post-come­down par­ty kids but their moms too, as heard in movie sound­tracks, adver­tise­ment jin­gles, or played over the radio while shop­ping at the mar­ket.”

Does he approve of any forms of elec­tron­ic music? Obvi­ous­ly. No one would spend this much time and effort and amass “30 years of back issues of Elec­tron­ic Music and Key­board mag­a­zine” and “an ungod­ly num­ber of books” on a sub­ject they despised. It’s just that he’s… well, a purist, you might say. Any media, for exam­ple, of any kind, that “uses the acronym ‘EDM,’” he writes “is com­plete don­key balls and should not be relied on as a source for any­thing.” He’s also ambi­tious­ly com­pre­hen­sive, includ­ing Hip Hop and all of its vari­ants in the mix, a move most his­to­ri­ans of elec­tron­ic music do not make, for fear of get­ting it wrong, per­haps, or because of cul­tur­al bias­es and nar­row ideas about what elec­tron­ic music is.

The data visu­al­iza­tion crossed with exten­sive pop musi­col­o­gy crossed with an almost quaint kind of ultra-nerdy online snark has some­thing for every­one. But don’t call it art, as one inter­view­er did. “I feel uneasy about this,” Ishkur answered. “It’s a joke more than any­thing. Very fun­ny. Very sil­ly. I poke fun at a lot of gen­res. It’s meant to be enter­tain­ment.” This is the stan­dard inter­net dis­claimer, but if you fol­low the guide’s branch­ing streams through hun­dreds of expand­ing gen­res and scenes, you might just find you’ve become a seri­ous stu­dent of elec­tron­ic music your­self, while learn­ing not to take any of it too seri­ous­ly.

Ishkur’s guide has recent­ly been updat­ed for 2019. He’s also released a “15 hour DJ set of elec­tron­ic music,” he announced on Twit­ter, “span­ning sev­er­al eras and a wide range of gen­res, all mixed in that inim­itable Ishkur style.” Get the mix here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The His­to­ry of Elec­tron­ic Music in 476 Tracks (1937–2001)

Hear Sev­en Hours of Women Mak­ing Elec­tron­ic Music (1938–2014)

Pio­neer­ing Elec­tron­ic Com­pos­er Karl­heinz Stock­hausen Presents “Four Cri­te­ria of Elec­tron­ic Music” & Oth­er Lec­tures in Eng­lish (1972)

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