Spoiler alert! If you haven't heard this week's Piano Puzzler by Bruce Adolphe, and you don't want to know...don't scroll down. Stop reading right now. Click to another website. Here's a nice picture to distract your eyes. Don't look below it.
Bruce wrote this week's Piano Puzzler in the style of Bela Bartok. And I got this note from PT listener Robert Foote in Athens, Georgia:
"I just heard the piano puzzler with the answer of My Bonnie and Bartok. The first composer that came to mind when I heard this was Chick Corea, but modern jazz composers aren't used for the puzzlers. But this made me wonder how much Chick Corea has been influenced by Bartok?"
First of all, Robert...I can hear what you mean! Chick Corea often uses a punchy, rhythmic staccato style similar to what Bruce employed this week, and the harmonies even sound like some of Corea's recordings.
Only he can answer the question about influence, but Chick Corea certainly knows from Bartok. In 1978, he and Herbie Hancock recorded a wild duet version of an ostinato from Bartok's Mikrokosmos. (Preview or download it here.)
I kid you not. (Scroll down on that page for details.)
Chick Corea, Bela Bartok and Bela Fleck is just one line that you can draw across genres. Some listeners tend to think that there are high walls between styles and that, for musicians, there is some stylistic purity.
Musicians don't think that way. This may be an interesting topic: how seemingly disparate musicians/performers have influenced each other.
I got a line for you:
Stravinsky-Charlie Parker-Bill Munroe-Elvis Presley
Just listened to last Friday's 21 century segment. Gernot Wolfgang's piece didn't grab me by the throat and scream "LISTEN TO ME" but I liked it anyway.
It had something that lots of classical music doesn't: groove. Nothing engages an audience faster than a consistent pulse - why does rubato always have to be the first arrow in every classical musician's expressivity quiver?
Posted by Alex Coppock | March 23, 2009 8:40 AM