Steve Jansen on Bandcamp

Oh how we love embedded players! Scroll down to press play and then come back to continue reading ;-). Steve Jansen is one of the founding members of the band Japan. If you have grey hair or no hair left at all, you will probably remember their somewhat extravagant features on the brim of the 70s and 80s that jumpstarted quite the opposite of a Quiet Life. They entered the recorded music scene with Adolescent Sex in 1978 and you guessed it, an album title like that did stir the pot of controversy in a generally conservative society.

Minimalism
Their fifth and final studio album Tin Drum (1981) received a BBC Radio 6 award for Best Album of 1981, thirty years after its release. To put in perspective of what was happening musically back then, Steely Dan‘s Gaucho was released a year prior in 1980 marking a change in style as some say. Gaucho was more focused on minimalism, groove and atmosphere compared to their earlier records. Donald Fagen‘s Nightfly (1982) was his first solo release after he and Walter Becker split up in 1981, ending their collaboration as Steely Dan until they recorded and released Two Against Nature (2000), two decades later.


Connections
So we move fast forward to the present, kind of. You can read more about Steve Jansen in a bio on his website or via other sources, and as such also listen to collaborative projects with, for example, Yukihiro Takahashi, drummer and co-founder of the Yellow Magic Orchestra. A few days ago various Todd Rundgren incarnations were in heavy rotation professing of the man’s utter genius over and over again, so we were pleasantly surprised to find his I Saw The Light on Takahashi’s Once A Fool album (1985). And it’s not as if we are looking for a Steely connection in everything, but we remember from the old Mizar5 days a rare sighting of Walter Becker at the Avatar Studios where Elliot Scheiner was mixing Porcupine Tree’s latest release at the time, In Absentia (2002). If you click the Avatar Studios link, you can see Walter in a picture with Elliot, along with Richard Barbieri and Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree). Click the image below for a large version.

The most unlikely Porcupine Tree fan ever?

Japan 2.0
Keyboardist Richard Barbieri was also a Japan band member and he and Steve Jansen formed The Dolphin Brothers who released one album in 1987, and a few EP’s. The both of them continued to collaborate from time to time and recorded a number of albums, among which Stone To Flesh (1995) that was re-mastered in 2015. And we also can’t ignore the excellent 2 Meter Sessions hosted by Jan Douwe Kroeske in the Netherlands which since its inception in 1987 is still going strong. You can see Steve Jansen, Richard Barbieri and Mick Karn† in the 2 Meter studio.

Steve Jansen photography
We now like to go straight to Steve Jansen’s very own music because it truly speaks louder than words. However louder, that’s not really an appropriate characterization to describe his work and creativity. Apart from recording music, or sounds, also in collaboration with his brother David Sylvian, Steve has a knack for photography and produced a book which enables the viewer a unique opportunity to travel back in time, the 80s to be exact, and to witness the Japan era: Through A Quiet Window.

You can check out his entire music catalogue at the Bandcamp page: https://stevejansen.bandcamp.com/

[bandcamp width=700 height=1260 album=143183898 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 package=1921921615]

Chris Punsulan tribute: Beats for Becker


Chris Punsulan is a young beats producer who discovered the music of Steely Dan only a while ago. He’s not a huge fan, as you can hear him say in the video, but he felt intrigued enough to check out the albums Aja and Countdown to Ecstasy. Early this year he felt inspired to create a certain Steely Dan beat, for his own pleasure. When he found out that Walter Becker had passed, he deemed it appropriate to share his Steely Dan beat and created a video, explaining the whole story! And what may be a funny twist to this, is that Chris’ beat sounds very kindred to Stevie Wonder’s Master Blaster from Hotter Than July… a song and perhaps artist he doesn’t know yet 😉 although the album covers in the back seem to indicate it’s virtually impossible for him to not know of Stevie Wonder!

Howard A. Rodman – 10 years old, sad and lost

“When I was 10 our family — my mother and I — moved from Bedford-Stuyvesant to Forest Hills. (The schools were better, my mother was told.) And I found myself the “new kid,” among strangers, whose habits made little sense to me, and with odd geographies to master. I was not happy, nor was I particularly pleasant. I withdrew into my books. I gained 10 pounds. To borrow a phrase: I was lost. Then I began to find companions. Comrades. Some of them are — and this is a blessing — still in my life today: Adam Duhan, Marc Levitt, Ken Lakritz, a few others. Who helped me navigate this new and unhappy land. And then there was Walter.”

continue reading here >> Howard A. Rodman remembers his old schoolfriend Walter

Howard A. Rodman is president of the Writers Guild of America West. He wrote the films Joe Gould’s Secret, Savage Grace, and August, and the novel Destiny Express. He is professor and former chair of the writing division of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts.

(excerpt published with permission of the author)

Jason Vieaux tribute to Walter Becker

“NPR describes Grammy-winning guitarist Jason Vieaux as, “perhaps the most precise and soulful classical guitarist of his generation,” and Gramophone magazine puts him “among the elite of today’s classical guitarists.” His most recent solo album, Play, won the 2015 Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo. In June 2014, NPR named “Zapateado” from the album as one of its “50 Favorite Songs of 2014 (So Far).” Find Jason on Facebook/JasonVieaux, Twitter/JasonVieaux, or learn more about him by visiting www.jasonvieaux.com”

2006 – 2016: Still A Fire In The Hole?

Ten years ago, these two Swedish vocalists dared to embark on a journey not many can pull off. What comes to mind in bold large font for some Steely Dan fans would be the word “ever“. We’re not here for discussion today, we’re just here to celebrate the 10th anniversary of this remarkable release, an album with twelve covers of well-known Steely Dan songs of which we’ll share this Your Gold Teeth II video with our faithful Mizar6 audience. Tack, Rebecka Törnqvist and Sara Isaksson!

rebecka-sara

The Birth of the Mu Major Chord

The Birth of the Mu Major Chord in 12th Century Paris

by Howard Wright

The “mu major chord” will be familiar to most Steely Dan fans as a spiced-up version of the plain major chord, used extensively by Donald and Walter in their songwriting. But the birth of this chord, which can be traced all the way back to 12th century Paris, is perhaps not so well known…

What’s in a Name?

Steely Dan’s use of the mu major chord in their jazz-influenced progressions is evident from their earliest to their most recent albums. As Donald and Walter themselves explained (http://www.steelydan.com/songbook.html), the mu major chord was “the most frequently used stylistic device in the arsenal of music effects responsible for defining and maintaining the distinctive Steely Dan sound”.

To create a mu major you take a major chord and substitute a second-degree note for a tonic note in the upper part of the chord. So with C major you’d swap one of the C notes for a D, transforming C major, e.g. C + G + C + E, into C mu major, C + G + D + E (see first bar in Figure 1). Voicings, like this one, that result in a whole-tone dissonance between the second and third would typically be favoured.

Perotin_mu_major_figure_1
Figure 1: Examples of a C mu major chord, created by modifying a C major chord (changing one of the C notes to a D).

Musicians familiar with the chord before the days of Steely Dan would probably have known it as an “add 2” chord (since it’s formed by adding the second to a major chord). Apart from their favouring of specific chord voicings, the main innovation that Donald and Walter introduced was the name “mu major”.

Prior to Steely Dan there were many other artists already using the chord, including Joni Mitchell, Nick Drake, The Beatles, Frank Zappa, not to mention classical composers such as Debussy and Stravinsky. So how far back in history do we have to go to find the earliest documented use of the mu major chord? Step into the time machine and hold on tight: we’re heading back to medieval Europe. You won’t believe the shoes…

Early Medieval Polyphony

Early medieval music was very much simpler and plainer than today’s music, with melodic lines usually having little or no supporting harmony. Apart from court musicians and troubadours, it was the devotional plainsong of the church that defined the musical landscape of the time. This plainsong was strictly monophonic, consisting of a single unaccompanied melody. Experiments with the single melodic lines of Gregorian chant, and the first steps towards polyphony, began in the late 9th century when a second voice was added, singing in parallel with the primary melody, usually in perfect fourths or fifths.

One of the key figures in the later development of this style of music, called “organum”, was Léonin, who freed the second voice from having to strictly follow the exact rhythmic and melodic contours of the original melody, opening the door to more varied harmonies. But it was his pupil and successor Pérotin who took even bolder steps, revolutionising the harmony of the times, and leading to the first documented use of the mu major chord.

Pérotin the Master

Both Léonin and Pérotin lived and worked in Paris in the late 12th century, and much of their music is linked to the Notre Dame Cathedral. Léonin is credited with the creation of the “Magnus Liber Organi” or “Great Book of Organum”, a landmark work that documented the state of the art of this two-voice style of singing. Many of Léonin’s compositions used a technique where the original plainchant melody would be greatly stretched out, with each syllable of the original text being sung over a long held note, while the second voice provided harmonic interest by singing more rapidly changing musical phrases above the slow plainchant melody.

Pérotin added to the “Magnus Liber”, most significantly with his pioneering creation of works for three and four voices (“organum triplum” and “organum quadruplum”). These also used very long notes in the tenor voice, which followed the original melody, while the other voices moved more quickly and freely above.

Everything in Moderation

It’s worth emphasising how the conservative tastes of the church placed great restrictions on what was deemed acceptable musical innovation. New compositional techniques would only be permitted if they were seen to glorify and build on existing music that had already been accepted by the church. Pushing back musical boundaries without paying careful respect to existing sacred melodies would have been frowned upon. Adding a second voice to a plainchant, let alone a third or fourth, might have been rejected as unsuitable for the church, unless the character of the original melody was maintained and not obscured.

One commentator, John of Salisbury, writing about the evolving musical styles of the 12th century, described this need to balance harmonic innovation with appropriate restraint:

“When you hear the soft harmonies of the various singers, some taking high and others low parts… you would think yourself listening to a concert of sirens rather than men… When this goes to excess it is more fitted to excite lust than devotion; but if it is kept in the limits of moderation, it drives away care from the soul and the solicitudes of life, confers joy and peace and exultation in God, and transports the soul to the society of angels”.

The First Mu Major

Pérotin’s composition Viderunt Omnes is the earliest piece of music we know of that used four independent voices singing in harmony. At a time when the use of even a second voice singing harmonies was a recent innovation, it’s hard to imagine the incredible impact of hearing polyphonic music in four voices for the first time. And at Notre Dame on Christmas Day 1198, at the first performance of Viderunt Omnes, the first composition using four-part polyphony, we find the first ever mu major chord. What an incredible quirk of history to learn that this quintessential Steely Dan chord was first heard over 800 years ago at the very birth of polyphonic music!

The mu major chord appears several times during Viderunt Omnes, but always as the chord immediately preceding a strongly consonant chord used to mark a change in one of the long notes in the “stretched” plainchant melody. Note that what was judged pleasing and consonant during medieval times was very different to today’s tastes. In the 12th century, octaves, perfect fourths and perfect fifths were judged to be the consonant intervals, and so it is chords made up of these intervals that were used to mark key points in the music, typically the start or end of each syllable sung over the long notes of the plainchant melody. The 12th century rules governing cadences involving these consonant chords typically allowed only stepwise motion of each of the voices. In other words, each voice could only move up or down one note of the scale to arrive at the note producing the desired consonant chord.

The most striking appearance of the mu major chord in Viderunt Omnes is in the cadence sung for the second syllable of the word “Omnes”:

 

The second chord of the cadence is, from low to high, F C C F, using intervals of a fifth, fourth, unison and octave. The “stretched melody” stays on the note C, and the three other voices each move by one step in the F major scale: G to F, D to C, E to F. This produces a cadence with a C mu major chord resolving to an F chord with no third: G + C + D + E resolving to F + C + C + F (see Figure 2). The same two-chord cadence appears elsewhere in the piece, but at bar 87 (transition to the second syllable of “Omnes”) the dynamics give it a particularly dramatic presence.

Perotin_mu_major_figure_2
Figure 2: The first ever mu major chord: a C mu major chord, resolving to a consonant chord on F, as used in Pérotin’s Viderunt Omnes.

 

Evolution of Dissonance

Mu major voicings like this, featuring two major-second dissonances (between C and D, D and E), are rarely used by Steely Dan, who typically favour just a single major-second dissonance. But cluster-style mu major chords very similar to the one in Viderunt Omnes do feature on some Steely Dan tracks (for example in the Michael Omartian piano parts on Katy Lied).

Given the very different perceptions of consonance in the 12th century, we can only speculate on how the mu major chords in Viderunt Omnes would have been perceived. A brief, unpleasant dissonance that leads to the soothing consonance of the next chord? Or did Pérotin and others find the unusual dissonances pleasing? It’s impossible to know for sure.

And could Pérotin have possibly dreamed that, when introducing the revolutionary idea of four voices singing in harmony, he had composed a chord that at the time was merely an unusual by-product of the 12th century rules for cadences, but would later become a favoured dissonance some eight centuries later? We will never know, but since he gave birth to the first ever mu major chord, Steely Dan fans should certainly be grateful to this 12th century musical revolutionary.

Links and further information

Introduction to the Steely Dan Song Book: http://www.steelydan.com/songbook.html.

Explanation of the Steely Dan mu major chord: http://www.hakwright.co.uk/steelydan/mu-major.html

Pérotin’s Viderunt Omnes (performed by the Hilliard Ensemble), video with sheet music:

Listen to the strongest cadence with a mu major chord in Viderunt Omnes (after 3m 40s):