Saturday, October 6, 2012

Saturday Night Soup For the Soup (05)



erhaps it was the scent and flavor of the delightfully pungent Paella Valencia and the Spanish tinged New Years party I attended. Or maybe I have drifted into an old world mood. In any case, this week, we feature a savory and most Succulent Spanish Soul Soup.


This week you will the  opening  composition from Miles Davis's landmark Sketches of Spain recording. Old world Spain meets new world 1960 Black America.
 
 




1960: This is the world into which AMC's Mad Men begins in season one.  The Howdy Doody 
show ends after a 13 year run, Captain Gary Powers spy plane shot down over the USSR, Khrushchev pounds his shoe on the podium of the U.N., John F. Kennedy wins the presidency by beating Richard Nixon, Castro, Enovil 10, first contraceptive pill is sold for .50 cents each and the sexual revolution is off and running...


...and the Beatles are just beginning their launch into orbit in the seedy bars and clubs of Hamburg fueled by amphetamines, booze, and a kaleidoscope of sex, and surrounded by a circus of whores, pimps, gangsters, transvestites, homosexuals, skin heads, arty extentialists, and walking talking freak shows of every stripe.

All of this, and much, much, more can be found inside Sketches of Spain, if you have ears that can hear what is hidden between the notes.

 
 
" Ask not what your country can do for you; Ask what you can do for your country"
 



























 





1. Concerto de Aranjuez (adagio). This Miles Davis and Gil Evans collaboration  is based on a Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concerto For Guitar and Orchestra. For me, it conjures up the atmosphere of Castro parading triumphantly into Havana. I am sure I heard this when I was a child, as there was a sense of familiarity for me from the very first notes. – perhaps on a CBS documentary on Fidel Castro?" 

This composition is featured in Man Men Season One Episode Eight where Don visits his Bohemian girlfriend, gets high smoking pot, and listens to Miles Sketches of Spain.  

 

You can get your delecious bowl of Saturday Night Soup for the Soul by clicking the jukebox.

2 comments:

RIC said...

On the Concerto de Aranjuez: there's a sung version of it in French called «Aranjuez mon amour». So to me that association you somehow do with martial music strikes me as odd. But then again we all have different memories of music, and often the first time plays a dominant role...
Thanks!

T-Bird said...

Oh that sounds very nice. A vocal to accompany this composition. will look for it.