Born September 6, 1925 in Dunleith, Mississippi
Died August 29, 1976 in Oakland, California

Mathis James “Jimmy” Reed, musician and songwriter popular during the 1950’s and ‘60’s, was noted for his electric blues guitar sound, lowdown harmonica, and slack-voiced, twangy singing style (which was his charm and trademark sound which many musicians imitated). He composed a string of hits, often popularized by others including the Rolling Stones (who cite Reed as a major influence), Grateful Dead, Elvis Presley, and Etta James.  Some of his hits include Ain’t That Lovin’ You Baby, Baby What You Want Me to Do,  Big Boss Man, and Bright Lights, Big City (the latter 2 were included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock Music).

Jimmy Reed battled alcoholism and died of respiratory illness at age 51. He was inducted posthumously to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.

Hear Jimmy Reed sing Down in Mississippi, and enjoy classic blues, with a  twist of Southern humor:

In case you didn’t understand Jimmy Reed’s lazy diction (which is what I love most about him!), here are the lyrics:

Down in Mississippi

by Jimmy Reed

Down in Mississippi where cotton grow tall,
get arrested for trouble you got to call the hound dog
Oh uh, down in Mississippi, whoa yeah, where the cotton grow tall
Yes, and on the other hand, baby, boll weevil wearing overalls

Go to work in the morning, you know, ’bout 4 o’clock
Uh, if the mule don’t holler, yeah, I don’t know when to stop
Down in Mississippi, baby, uh whoa yeah, where the cotton grow tall
Well, and on the other hand, baby, boll weevil wearing overall

I go to church in the morning, baby, you know, down the railroad track
Late over in the evening they bring, bring the preacher back
He eat up all the chicken now but uh right to the neck
Look over at my baby and he eat up all the rest ’cause he was uh down in Mississippi
Uh oh yeah, where the cotton grow tall
Well now, and on the other hand, baby, boll weevil wearing overalls

Born Sept. 5, 1912 in Los Angeles, California
Died Aug. 11, 1992 in Manhattan, New York

“There are two things that don’t have to mean anything;
one is music, and the other is laughter.”
- John Cage, paraphrasing Immanuel Kant. (Cage agreed with Kant that music and laughter don’t have to mean anything in order to give us deep pleasure.)

Avant garde composer, writer, artist, and philosopher, John Cage was a unique figure whose influence on 20th century music, art, and dance was perhaps even more important than his own artistic output. In fact, his most famous work was 4’33”, a piece composed for piano (or any other instruments!) that consisted of
4 minutes and 33 seconds of absolute silence, divided into 3 movements. So obviously this minimalist loved a good laugh, and the joke doesn’t stop there: 4’33”  has even been included on several CD collections! Cage shared a lifelong partnership, both personally and professionally, with choreographer Merce Cunningham, and the two of them made a lasting impact on contemporary dance. As an artist and printmaker himself, Cage also influenced fellow artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, and others in the art world.

Cage studied with Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg, radical composers in their own right.  He taught experimental music at Wesleyan University, where he was affiliated until his death in 1992.  He also taught at Mills College, UCLA, the Cornish College of the Arts, and The New School. Cage was influenced by Indian philosophy, Zen Buddhism, and I Ching, the Chinese classical text on changing events, which he used as a tool for composing chance or aleatory music. As a minimalist composer, he also experimented with found sounds, electronic music, and “prepared” piano (which consisted of sticking nuts, bolts, rubber, plates, etc. between the strings of the piano to create the effect of an entire percussion orchestra). Prepared piano often produced exotic effects resembling mbiras, marimbas, bells, gamelan, wood blocks and other percussion. Listen to Cage’s Sonata for Prepared Piano:

John Cage’s Sonata X for Prepared Piano

Now meet the humorous, iconic John Cage near the end of his life, as he expresses his thoughts about listening, music, sounds. . . and silences:

Born Sept. 4, 1892 in Aix-en-Provence, France
Died June 22, 1974 in Geneva, Switzerland

“Don’t be afraid of writing something people can remember and whistle. Don’t ever feel discomfited by a melody".  Milhaud to his student Burt Bacharach

Milhaud was a student of Charles Widor, Vincent d’Indy, and Paul Dukas.  A member of Les Six (“Group of Six” avant garde French composers), Milhaud was prolific and composed with apparent ease in many genres including operas, ballets, symphonies, concertos, solo and chamber works. Polytonality, jazz idioms (after his visit to Harlem), and Brazilian rhythms (after living in Brazil) are found in some of his works. His jazz ballet The Creation of the World and his ballet Le Boeuf sur le Toit (Ox on the Roof) were two of his most famous works. He also was a master of counterpoint, composing two string quartets (No. 14 and 15) which can also be performed as an octet (quite a contrapuntal feat!). While in Brazil he worked with French Ambassador and famous poet and playwright Paul Claudel, for whom he later wrote incidental music.

Composer, pianist, and eminent teacher, Milhaud taught alternate years at Mills College in California and the Paris Conservatory from 1947-1971.  Among his famous students are Dave Brubeck, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Burt Bacharach, Morton Subotnick, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Iannis Xenakis.

Enjoy Milhaud’s exuberant Brasileira from Scaramouche for 2 Pianos:

Born June 28, 1491, London, England
Died Jan. 28, 1547, London, England

Henry VIII, despite the image of the old, grossly obese tyrant and wife killer most of us retain from our spattering of English history in school, cut quite a dashing figure in his youth. Six feet tall, handsome, athletic, charming, intelligent and well educated, he was a lady killer (please pardon the pun) in every sense of the word. As described by a contemporary, he was “one of the goodliest men that lived in his time, in manners more than a man, most amiable, courteous and benign in gesture unto all persons.” But my oh my, how time, history, and six wives can change even the “goodliest” man. While travelling in England, I have encountered Henry’s looming historical presence wherever I go. Visiting the castles at Hever, the childhood home of Ann Boleyn, and Knole, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s home until Henry conviscated it, I realize that Henry still casts a tall shadow throughout the land. So I thought I would share some of my discoveries.

Not everyone knows about Henry VIII’s softer, more humane side. He was a poet, linguist, talented musician, accomplished composer, and a huge patron of the arts. He loved the musicians, acrobats, magicians, and jesters who provided lively entertainment for the court (oddly, not unlike the subjects fellow lady-killer Picasso loved to paint five centuries later). Henry might have joined the Cirque de Soleil had he been born 500 years later.  He could play the harp, viola, lute, organ, virginal, fife, and drums, and was a gifted dancer and singer as well, especially skilled in sight singing with his courtiers. What’s not to love in a tall, handsome, talented musician? He certainly must have had his share of court groupies. For more on Henry the musician read this lively blog on Henry VIII: A Machiavellian Musical Monarch.

Listen to some musical examples of Henry VIII’s compositions.

In the meantime, don’t lose your head over a handsome musician who wields a crown.

Lindley Armstrong “Spike” Jones

Born December 14, 1911 in Long Beach, California
Died May 1, 1965 in Los Angeles, California

If you’re too young to remember him  then it’s time for an introduction.  As a musician and band leader, Spike Jones was one of a kind. In the 1940’s and 50’s Spike and his City Slickers recorded and toured throughout the U.S. and Canada as “The Musical Depreciation Revue.”  He was a radio star (1945-49) who successfully transitioned into a television star with his own weekly shows (1954-61).  He was a trailblazer mixing music and found sounds (burps, hiccups, fog horns, gun shots, etc.) paving the way for Stomp, Blast, PDQ Bach, Monty Python,  Frank Zappa, the Beatles, “Weird Al” Yankovic & others.  As the son of a Southern Pacific Railroad agent, young Spike was initiated into “kitchen music” by a railroad chef who showed him  how to play pots and pans, knives and spoons. His musical parodies of classical, as well as pop, rock, and other genres of music, were legendary. Nothing was too serious to be spared his satirical touch. Spike even took on Hitler in 1942 with his famous “Der Fuehrer’s Face,” which Disney later used in a wartime Donald Duck cartoon parody (which won the 1943 Oscar for Best Animated Short Film).

THE SPIKE JONES STORY. This DVD documentary of Spike Jones’s  life and work is full of comic musical parodies from his TV shows, such as Cocktails for Two, Der Fuehrer’s Face, You Always Hurt the One You Love, All I Want for Music is My Two Front Teeth, 50’s rock and roll parodies and more. Enjoy interviews with those who knew him best, professionally and personally, including family. DVD 5015  $24.95 buy now

Hear Spike Jones’s “black and blue” rendition of Strauss’s The Blue Danube:

Born December 10, 1908 in Avignon, France
Died  April 27, 1992 in Clichy, France

“I give bird-songs to those who dwell in cities and have never heard them, make rhythms for those who know only military marches or jazz, and paint colors for those who see none.” —Olivier Messiaen

The Musician who Loved Birds

Olivier Messiaen was perhaps the most influential French composer since Debussy. He redefined avant-garde, although his highly original works often reflect conservative values of spirituality, nature, and  beauty that set his music apart from the harsher trends of the 20th century. While others “musicalized” the harsh mechanized sounds of urban life, war, and the industrial age, Messiaen preferred nature, and most of all, birds.  As a passionate ornithologist, he painstakingly transcribed birdsongs, particularly the songbirds of France. Birds were the true musicians, he felt, and their songs were transformed exquisitely in his music, as seen in Catalogue de Oiseaux (1958).

Messiaen enjoyed a happy childhood filled with music and poetry. At age 10 after discovering Debussy he declared his intention to become a composer.  His mother penned a long colorful poem to him before he was born, and the synaesthesia which caused the composer to experience sounds as colors (as did fellow composers Rimsky-Korsakov and Scriabin) he attributed to her. “When I hear music, I hear colors,” he said. “When I compose, I see the colors as I see the sounds.” He described one of his harmonic sequences as changing “from blue striped with green to black spotted with red and gold, by way of diamond, emerald, purplish-blue, with a dominant pool of orange studded with milky white.” (Once he got a stomach ache at a ballet when the violet lighting clashed with his color conception of the Key of G!) His father,  a teacher of English, translated Shakespeare into French. As a child, Messiaen delighted in adapting Shakespeare plays for family productions.  Considering that Shakespeare wrote more about birds than any other poet,  is it any wonder that birds would sing in  Messiaen’s music more than in any other composer’s?

Messiaen underwent a rigorous classical musical education at the Paris Conservatoire (1919-30), studying with Paul Dukas, Charles-Marie Widor, and Marcel Dupré.  His education came full circle when he taught there from 1941-78, instructing such influential musicians as Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, George Benjamin, and Iannis Xenakis. The most profound influence in his life was his strict Roman Catholicism, which he expressed strongly in his music and in his 61-year tenure as organist of Eglise de la Trinité in Paris. [It was at La Trinité where I was privileged to hear Messiaen at the organ during the annual memorial service Nadia Boulanger held for her sister Lily Boulanger; this venerable neo-gothic church was at my metro stop during my junior year in Paris, near Mlle. Boulanger’s home in nearby Montmartre where I was privileged to attend her weekly music analysis classes.]  

Messiaen’s deep spiritual faith was akin to Bach’s. Both felt that the essential goal of music was to glorify God. “I want to write music that is an act of faith, a music that is about everything without ceasing to be about God,” declared Messiaen. When his faith was tested during his 2-year captivity in a German POW camp, he composed his most important work Quartet for the End of Time (1941). Written for piano, clarinet, violin and cello–the only 4 instruments available to him in the prison camp, this intensely mystical work had a profound effect on 5000 fellow prisoners in the camp, where it was performed for the first time.

Messiaen’s compositional innovations included the use of Greek meters, Hindu rhythms, rhythmic palindromes, adventurous harmonies, and a vivid use of color in his orchestrations through unusual percussion such as the ondes martenot (a vacuum tube instrument that was successor to the spooky theremin). He  also briefly experimented with electronic music (Fête des belles eaux, 1937) and serialism (Quatre études de rythme, 1949). His legacy includes  works for organ, piano, voice, orchestra, and an almost 6-hour-long opera (Saint Francois d’Assise, 1975-1983).  He was in ill health when he finally completed what he thought would be his final work,  but how fitting is it that St. Francis is the subject of his only opera. (Hear St. Francis’s ecstatic sermon to the birds, Act II, Scene 6). In this gentle saint Messiaen found someone who quietly worshipped God and passionately loved nature and birds as much as himself.

Biographers Peter Hill and Nigel Simeone reflect on Messiaen’s techniques of transcribing and composing with birdsongs:

Here’s a good children’s book on Messiaen:

Music for the End of Time

by Jen Bryant, illus. by Beth Peck

“In my hour of gloom, when I am suddenly aware of my own futility. . .what is left for me but to seek out the true, lost face of music somewhere off in the forest. . .among the birds.” -Messiaen

This poetic children’s biography  reveals the small miracle of how French composer Olivier Messiaen wrote his most important work, Quartet for the End of Time. Imprisoned in a German POW camp, Olivier longs for his family, friends, and home. . .but most of all he misses music. A chance encounter with a nightingale and a German officer, however, provides him with the opportunity to write music again. When a make-shift concert on broken-down instruments takes place in the camp in 1941, Quartet for the End of Time (and the song of the nightingale which is in it) offers a message of hope and beauty that inspires Messiaen’s 5000 fellow prisoners.

Born Dec. 9, 1967 in Bloomington, Indiana

Joshua Bell is one of the world’s outstanding violinists. As a child prodigy, at age 4 he began to study violin, debuting with the Philadelphia Orchestra when he was only 14.  In 1985 he made his Carnegie Hall debut with the St. Louis Symphony. He has continued to expand his worldwide career as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestra conductor, with a busy schedule that includes performances,  recording, and film work. He also devotes time to sharing his love of classical music with disadvantaged youth, and was honored for his efforts in 2009 by Education Through Music.  He can be seen in the film Ladies in Lavender, where he plays an injured Polish violinist washed ashore into the care of two English spinsters Maggie Smith and Judi Dench. In Music of the Heart with Meryl Streep, Bell plays himself in this heartwarming, true story of helping to save an embattled string program in the New York public schools. In Red Violin, he performed the violin works in the incredible soundtrack which won an Oscar for best score. (How Bell’s own Stradivarius came into his life is equally intriguing and strikingly similar to the violin’s odyssey in the Red Violin. Read the theft-ridden story of his violin on his website)

One of Joshua Bell’s most unusual performances came in a busy Washington D.C. subway station, where he participated in a social experiment. He played for 45 minutes during morning rush hour, as  commuters hurried by. Only a 3-yr.-old seemed eager to listen.  What a sad commentary! The busy crowd failed to pause long enough to listen even briefly to one of the world’s greatest violinists. A few tossed a little money in the hat, but most rushed by without a glance.  Read the Washington Post’s  unbelievable story and watch and listen to the video of his “subway concert.”

Also see Joshua Bell in THE BACH PROJECT DVD to be released Jan. 29, 2010. Hear him play Bach’s Chaconne, along with narrative on the life of Bach.

Painting by Velasquez

Born Oct. 26, 1685 in Naples, Italy
Died July 23, 1757 in Madrid, Spain

Domenico Scarlatti was born into an illustrious musical family, auspiciously in the same year as two other great Baroque composers,  J. S. Bach and Handel. He received early training from his father Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725), chapel organist and composer  in Naples, who encouraged him to write vocal music.  As a young man Domenico went to Venice where he met  Handel and allegedly competed in a keyboard “duel,” where he was judged the equal of Handel on the the harpsichord but his inferior on the organ.  In 1709 he moved to Rome, expanding his training with Pasquini and Gasparini (student of Corelli). In Rome he served as maestro di cappella for the theater of the exiled queen of Poland,  then in 1714-19  serving as maestro di cappella at St. Peter’s in the Vatican. During this period he composed mostly sacred vocal works and operas.

For most of his life, however, he served in the royal courts of Portugal and Spain. There he indulged in his real passion for the harpsichord, composing 555 highly original keyboard sonatas which secured his lasting fame (although few of them were published during his lifetime). His music shows evidence of the influence of Spanish folk and dance music, which he loved. You can hear flamenco effects in his use of guitar-like  harmonic and rhythmic  patterns, striking dissonances, arpeggiated “strums,” quick repeated notes, ornamental accents, and the use of the Arabic Phyrgian mode. His works were characteristically Baroque in their binary form and contrapuntal texture, however Scarlatti’s use of tonality prepared the way for sonata form and the Classical era. The first section unusually modulates to a new key, and the second section finds its way back to the home key.

Teaching Tip: See if your students can hear the guitar effects in Scarlatti’s Sonata, K. 455, for harpsichord. The music animation will help the eye follow the overlapping visual lines while the ear focuses on the musical lines.

Born Oct. 25, 1838 in Paris, France
Died June 3, 1875 in Bougival, France

Bizet was born into a musical family and entered the Paris Conservatory when he was only 9. There he became a brilliant pianist, and studied composition and counterpoint. In 1857 he left for study in Italy, as winner of the coveted Prix de Rome. Despite his successful and precocious early life, his career and personal life were frought with many trials. His works were often unappreciated by the public and his  life was disrupted  by service in the Franco-Prussian War.

In 1971 he composed a piano duet, Jeux d’enfants, a delightfully descriptive suite of children’s games, which he later transcribed for orchestra in Petite Suite. His greatest masterpiece was the opera Carmen, which incorporated Spanish music and dance, and was first produced in Paris in 1975. Judged a colossal failure, it was ridiculed for its music and condemned as obscene. Bizet fell into a depression and illness, and died shortly afterwards at the age of 36, never knowing that his failed Carmen would become one of the most beloved operas of all times.

In The Composer’s’ Specials DVDs ( the award-winning PBS series for children), Bizet’s Dream tells a fictionalized story based on the creation of Carmen, with outstanding excerpts from his music.

Teaching tip: Jeux d’enfants offers a perfect introduction to descriptive program music. These 12 miniatures paint musical pictures of children’s games and toys that are universally loved. How fun it would be to introduce both the games/toys and the music in a classroom setting. Titles include such childhood treasures as Leap Frog, Blind Man’s Bluff, Soap Bubbles, Hobby Horses, The Top, The Doll, The Swing, & more. Hear this lively performance of The Ball to see how this imaginative piece would lend itself to a class of 3rd graders bouncing balls.

Born Oct. 22, 1811, Raiding, Hungary
Died July 31, 1886, Bayreuth, Germany

Liszt’s father was a cellist in the court of Esterhazy (where Haydn had also served as composer), and he instructed his son in piano. Franz was a child prodigy, and developed an early interest in both church and gypsy music. He began to compose at age 8, and by age 9 performed his first concert. His father then took him to Vienna, where he studied piano with Carl Czerny (a pupil of Beethoven) and composition with Antonio Salieri, music director of the Viennese court (and rival to Mozart). In 1923 Liszt moved with his family to Paris, where he was refused admittance to the Paris Conservatory because he was a foreigner. He made his sensational Paris debut in 1824 and traveled with his father throughout France, Germany, Switzerland, and England to rave reviews.

Liszt grew into a dashing, handsome virtuoso and composer, whose fame spread throughout Europe. And his charms were not lost on the ladies, who regarded him as a sort of “rock star.” Earning his living primarily as a piano teacher, he fell in love with one of his students. After her father objected to the affair, Liszt’s health suffered, and later he considered becoming a priest. His personal life revived with Countess Marie d’Agoult, with whom he had 2 daughters and a son. (His daughter Cosima was the future wife first of conductor/pianist/composer Hans von Bulow then later of Richard Wagner).  Other romantic interests played significant roles in his life, but the loves of Liszt are too many for this short blog.

Liszt met and was greatly influenced by Berlioz, Chopin, and the violinist Paganini. He composed over 700 works including symphonic poems, sacred and secular choral works, songs, chamber music and piano music. He was one of the greatest late Romantic composers, and also wrote several books on music.  As a pianist, he was the first to give complete solo recitals. Through his transcriptions for piano, he did a great deal to introduce concert audiences to the music of Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Berlioz, and Wagner, at a time when they were insufficiently known or appreciated. He also generously encouraged younger composers, including Grieg, Borodin, Saint-Saens, and  Debussy. As a teacher, he inspired a new generation of virtuosos.

Hear Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 13.

Lizst’s Rhapsody DVD is a fictionalized PBS film for children based on the life of Liszt, with numerous excerpts of his music.  A teacher’s guide is also available for this DVD and others in the Composers’ Specials DVD series.