h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm glad you like it

It has been a gratifying learning process for me to follow your threads about music. Not only have you told me a lot I didn't know before - but add to this the knowledge I got from googling information about the music I recommended.

Sometimes I wasn't sure if what I had heard - sometimes up to many years before - was actually true. Other things I was unsure about whether I remembered them correctly. And in this research and verifying process I most of the time gathered new information. Gave me quite a few aha moments that did!

I shall celebrate this by playing DOFP a.s.a.p.

Maybe even followed by some other of the moody's records. I have seven but one is a double cd called both "The Collection" and "The Moody Blues Anthology"

Yesterday I picked up some inexpensive CDs by John Coltrane and Coleman Hawkins on the back from seeing my father. I have a weakness for saxophone music. I was in seventh heaven listening to them. I had hoped for a CD by Charlie Parker as well [a sax trifecta!], but the ones I saw were a bit pricey.

These discussions we've been having have been great, Pierce! There's still plenty more to talk about.

Indeed. The possibilities seem unlimited

I love saxes myself. But while I seem to have a broad taste in music I haven't paid much attention to Coltrane, Hawkins and Parker - yet. I was very fond of Ben Webster, partly because we were very proud to have him here in Denmark for some years (along with some other jazz greats like Stan Getz and Dexter Gordon).

Dick Heckstall-Smith impressed me by playing both soprano and tenor sax - at the same time! - for Jon Hiseman's bands Colosseum and Colosseum II. Their "Valentyne Suite" is still one of the pearls in my collection. For many years I thought if I was only allowed one record this would be it. Maybe it still is.

Hopefully I will never have to decide! What an awful thought!

Coltrane, Parker and Hawkins were on a list of the most influential Jazz musicians of all time. I now have 10 of the 15 musicians that were on the list. I worry that jazz will be swept into oblivion soon. The playing by those musicians is on the highest possible level.

I've just gone back and reclassified Led Zeppelin as heavy metal. They pretty much invented the genre.

Last night I listened to albums by Metallica and Bon Jovi. I will listen to other CDs by these bands, but my first impression of Bon Jovi is very positive. Metallica is good, but I don't like it as much. Next week I will hear Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath. Kiss may come after that. Sensory overload describes my reaction to these CDs. I can understand how people can be hypnotized by heavy metal. After an hour of that, it's hard to figure out what to do for an encore.

I'm also considering Kate Smith and Sarah Brightman. Kate reinvented herself in the 1960s with a TV show and an appearance in Carnegie Hall. She changed her singing style. I have some reissues of her material from the 1930s and 1940s on vinyl. Nothing on CD, though. I don't think any of her pre-60s material has made it onto CD, alas.

" For many years I thought if I was only allowed one record this would be it. Maybe it still is. Hopefully I will never have to decide! What an awful thought!"[Pierce]

My goal is to have one or two CDs for each artist or ensemble in this collection. That doesn't stop me from starting a second collection focusing on albums rather than anthologies of song hits, though. We'll see how it goes.

One of my pet peeves is when people write "Greatest of the century" lists and then conveniently pretend that the years before 1950 did not exist. I can understand that, worldwide, people wanted to forget the turmoil of the two World Wars and the Depression and everything that would remind them of them. Starting afresh with new pop music genres helped them do that. But that's a strategy that makes as much sense as cutting off your nose to spite your face. Also, mass culture still keeps throwing out reminders of past angst. The ripples from Hitler's Third Reich and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki continue to spread out. "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" and its sequels feature aging Nazis. An early scene in "Wolverine" is set during the Nagasaki blast. Art purchases by museums have to be made in different ways now, because so many works have turned out to have been looted form the homes of jJwish families during the Holocaust. You can't escape the past. You might as well enjoy what was good about it, because Hollywood and the music industry is sure gonna capitalize on the dark side of it for all they're worth!

My parents used to drag the whole family (I have four siblings) to every possible classical concert and I loved it. We also went to the theatre and the occasional ballet.

You see I grew up in the northernmost part of Germany, now called Schleswig-Holstein, but it used to be Danish under the names Slesvig and Holsten. There is still a huge minority of Danes living there with own schools, kindergartens, libraries, churches and so on. And all through the year Danish symphony orchestras, choirs, ballets and theatre companies will tour through Schleswig-Holstein to spread Danish culture to the "poor" Danes who lost their part of Denmark to Germany.

(I should emphasize at this point that relations between Danes and Germans in Schleswig-Holstein have grown very harmonic since WWII and is now a prime example of coexistence.)

One of the highlights was a concert by the renowned Danmarks Radios Bigband featuring such greats as Ben Webster, Sahib Shihab, Dollar Brand (now Abdullah Ibrahim), Ray Pitts and if memory serves Dexter Gordon and a few others. For obvious reasons neither of us will ever hear such a lineup again. It is sad.

But it was only when I read Mezz Mezzrow's "Really The Blues" years later that I realized what I had witnessed. I felt blessed and still do.

By the way, another good read is Timme Rosenkrantz' "Harlem Jazz Adventures". Very witty! And informative. It is probably thanks to Rosenkrantz that so many US'ian jazz greats moved to Copenhagen, Denmark, (while others followed Mezzrow to Paris):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timme_Rosenkrantz

As a matter of fact I think I'll re-read both books shortly. Plus the writings of Rosenkrantz that I haven't had the pleasure of reading before

I looked up been Webster. He was ranked as one of the three top tenor sax players along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young. Ray Pitts was born in Boston?

So many artists, so little time.

Just checked. Yes, Pitts was indeed a bostonian!

I added Andrea Bocelli to my collection today in the crossover category.

I saw him on tv singing with a beautiful lady (Sarah Brightman, I believe) and thought "Damned shame he can't see her". But at least she didn't distract him from singing

I may have the song he was singing. There's a track in which he sings a duet with her. I've just ordered a CD for Sarah Brightman.

Very big eyes she had

I'm taking another look at Mr. Children [Japanese] and A-ha {Norwegian]. Both bands had vast numbers of fans everywhere except the U.S. and Great Britain. Yesterday I listened to Ayumi Hamasaki, who is popular in Japan. I liked the Japanese sound.

Norway is definitely not famous for popular music. Not since Grieg died anyway. A-ha came sort of out of nowhere and became huge

I'm not familiar with the Japanese scene, but we have had Danish groous with huge success in Japan and the rest of the Far East: Pretty Maids (heavy metal) and Michael Learns To Rock (pop) have earned fortunes over there.

Only Danish band that made it big worldwide was of course Aqua.

But you may have heard of Savage Rose, founded by the Koppel brothers who are out of a dynasty of classical musicians and composers. Their singer Anisette reminds a bit of Janis Joplin (both have distinct "white" voices, yet sing "black" blues and the like).

I haven't heard of much, Pierce, sad to say. At least that's my reaction when I hear other researchers talking about the bands they're familiar with. Verve? T-Rex? The Smiths? I figure that I must be hopeless out of it, but it probably just means that many British bands don't penetrate into the American market. Not just British bands. A-ha had one successful album in the U.S., and then was forgotten about there. The band's success depended on the rest of world.

I go online and look for lists of things that one ought to have in order to be respectable. About 150 artists or bands have sold 50 million albums or more. There were some omissions [Diana Ross? John Denver?], but the people on it seem to matter. For the earlier parts of the century, I find lists of the greatest big bands, the most influential jazz musicians, etc.

My process is about patiently turning over every rock and seeing [or hearing] whether I like what is there. To some extent it becomes easier to like something after you've gotten more familiar with it. Curiosity is good for something, after all. Today my local library provided me with CDs by Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath. I heard Iron Maiden earlier today. I'll save the other one for tomorrow. These are heavy metal bands. When I listen to them, I realize that this genre has something in common with grand opera. That understanding makes it easier to listen to them.

Grand opera, eh? Yes, I think I see what you mean

You may certainly find that parallel "in the court of the Crimson King" and in Uriah Heep's "Salisbury" - and of corse Colosseum's "Valentyne Suite" (the latter being more jazz-rock-symphony than heavy metal, though)

By the way I heard a rumour yesterday that Robert Fripp was going to reform King Crimsom - but first in a year from now. Don't know what to make of that rumour

I'm listening to "Black Sabbath" in a greatest hits [1970-78] cd -- didn't realize that Ozzie Osbourne was in that group [that shows how little I know]. It's pretty good, actually. I will probably get a copy.

"Grand opera, eh? Yes, I think I see what you mean. You may certainly find that parallel "in the court of the Crimson King" and in Uriah Heep's "Salisbury" - and of corse Colosseum's "Valentyne Suite" (the latter being more jazz-rock-symphony than heavy metal, though)" [Pierce]

That's part of it. What I meant is that people come to opera and heavy metal because they seek transcendence. The restrictions of the real world seem intolerable and too limiting. So, the idea is to push back at boundaries and get lost in an experience that is larger than life. Sensory overload is a big part. Wagner and Verdi mounted some powerful spectacles awash in color and movement and full-bodied sound. Sonic overload is very much a part of heavy metal, too. Opera thrives on stories of people who break the rules of their societies and pay the price for it, but rage against injustice. The satanic often plays a part -- rule-breaking writ large! -- as in the demons carrying Don Giovanni off to Hell, and Faust making a pact with the . Fighting for freedom against powerful oppressors informs "Fidelio" and "Les Miserables." On the metal side, there's "Number of the beast" form Iron maiden [666, to make it clear who the beast is], and numerous allusions to demonic entities in Black Sabbath. Rock has been called a "psychic jail-break," with metal being the most powerful expression of freedom.

Singers push their voices way beyond normal limits in both opera and heavy metal. And as long as they have voices that can stand the strain, I like what they come up with.

So, I'm happy to have a bit of metal in my pop collection, as long as it's the best of what's available. I also have 140 operas, which I listen to regularly.

Slowly but surely, the pieces of the puzzle that is called music are coming together.

And, my friend, you have helped enormously.

I think you are exaggerating, but I like it

And anyway the help goes both ways. Just this last comparison between heavy metal and opera is quite an eye-opener. You are very right, I'm sure, and I never really saw it that way. Probably because I've never really listened to opera.

I was impressed by Black Sabbath when I first heard their first album in 1970, but I was still too much of a peace freaked flower power hippie to appreciate it

When Osbourne started to freak out I just shook my head in disbelief like most others I knew, but these days I like him. He's honest and didn't really do anything I wouldn't have done back then had I had his opportunities

Well, maybe not just *everything* he did

Opera and heavy metal are the two genres that get ridiculed a lot. The fans of both genres couldn't care less. Douglas Adams poked a lot of fun at metal groups whose music was so loud it had to be played on planets far away.

Right now I'm listening to a CD of singles by A-ha. I picked it up on my way to see my father this afternoon. I also picked up a CD of ABBA hits.

Adams was a close friend of David Gilmour, guitarist in Pink Floyd. I think he made an inside joke about Pink Floyd when he mentioned the band Disaster Area, but I could be wrong, because the description sounds more like a heavy metal band than Pink Floyd.

On one occasion - I think it was Adams' birthday - Gilmour let Adams play guitar on stage with Pink Floyd. Adams also contributed to Pink Floyd's album "The Division Bell": Adams provided the title