Music Meme: Bonus Question

[cjlasky7]

This might be a little easier to answer than my last try at a bonus question. It has boundaries, specifically:

What is your favorite piece of music over ten minutes long?

My selection: "Concierto d'Aranjuez: Adagio"


As I said to beer_good_foamy a few days ago, this is the music I go to when the world is out of control and I need to regain my center. Gil Evans provides the setting; Miles Davis provides the soul. An unparalleled combination.

https://youtu.be/2cscpJisU6k

Comments

[shadowkat]

I don't know that requires counting. Still hard. You need to work harder at finding easier bonus questions.

I had to google it. Again.

Off the top of my head - pretty much anything by The Grateful Dead or Jerry Garcia - specifically Fire on the Mountain and Sugar Begonias.

But I'm not a fan of the Dead. And of course Arlo Guthrie's classic tour de force "Alice's Restaurant" - which doesn't quite count as a piece of music in my opinion.

However - those aren't my choices...

I'd choose either:

Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here/Shine on You Crazy Diamond Parts 1 - IX" - beautiful and melancholy rock orchestrations and guitar solos...

Or

Nina Simone's Sinnerman - it has the most depth, and is a brilliant blend of vocal and jazz percussion orchestrations. Includes clapping, drums, and feet. It's a great song to dance around your apartment to during a pandemic, just saying.

[atpo_onm]

On those occasional sad times when you start to wonder if the human race is worth saving, there is this as one possible response:

Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis

The BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrew Davis at Gloucester Cathedral, where in 1910, it was played and conducted for the first time by composer Ralph Vaughan Williams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihx5LCF1yJY

I enjoy quite a lot of classical music, but this piece just stands on another level for me. If it comes on the radio, I just stop whatever I'm doing and fall into it.

[cjlasky7]

No, you've got it! You hit it exactly right! I expect Floyd in this category--Shine On and Echoes are two of the standard selections for 10 minutes + goodness--but Nina Simone is the kind of unexpected gem I wanted to hear.

[shadowkat]

Oh good. I rather liked your pick, when I finally got to listen to it.

Nina Simone's Sinnerman didn't make the music critics list of Top 10 songs that were over ten minutes. But of his list, it's my favorite and the one I listen to the most.
I find it more layered and unique than Floyd. Also, Floyd mostly did songs over 10 minutes, so too did the Grateful Dead. Their bootleg tapes are all over ten minutes.
(Ten minutes of long rambling and often unnecessary electric guitar solos that turn on people who love long rambling electric guitar solos and dream of doing it themselves.) So when you think of anything over ten minutes - it's basically the Dead and Floyd, who both made the critics list - twice.

[cjlasky7]

I had four choices rotating in my head for this category--Echoes by Pink Floyd, Starless by King Crimson, Aranjuez from Miles, and Traffic's Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys. But I had another Traffic song on tap for today (and I don't want to bludgeon my social media friends with my Crimson fandom).

I like Creedence's version of "Grapevine", because Fogerty and the band settle into a solid groove. But it's not really a ten minute song. It's two minutes of song, and nine minutes of jamming. For this meme, it's kind of "cheating."