Indigenous Husic
Hentoff, Nat
INDIGENOUS MUSIC ^ Nat Hentoff Midwestern Heart She has a rainbow voice of such strength and tenderness that it would have been a sign, in the old fairy tales, of a special presence having...
...She is equally convincing in both settings, and in just about all of the myriad other scenes of childhood, autumnal years, and crannies in between that she illuminates in her three albums so far...
...Then, Schmidt moves with sensuous ease into "Since I Fell for You," a rhythm-and-blues ballad that celebrates the use of "bed" as a verb...
...It's a mystery to me, since I consider the first and third to be more diversely evocative...
...She's not a jazz singer, and she certainly has nothing to do with rock, or even country...
...After Claudia Schmidt came Midwestern Heart (Flying Fish FF 241...
...As I listened to the song again (I heard Penn himself sing it in his appealingly unfinished voice), I wondered how many Baby Jane Does would get to hear it: I'm a little cookie, yes, lam, I was made by the cookie man...
...She has one problem, though—for those to whom this sort of thing is a problem...
...M Choice Cuts Blue Angel is an exceptionally resourceful, relatively inexpensive supplier of recordings, particularly imports...
...It's called "I'm a Little Cookie," and it was written by Larry Penn, a Milwaukee truck driver-singer...
...It was this album, says the record company, that gave Claudia Schmidt national recognition...
...A heart that "wishes for cows to be wild again/ Afraid of heights/It will tickle the tops of mountains/Right where it lies/Beating away in the chest/Big ornery thing/Midwestern heart...
...Now I ain't as round as I might be, but I'll taste good, just wait and see, And I can love back just twice as hard as any regular cookie can...
...You might call her a folk singer, but she doesn't sound as if she's ever peered at the variants of a Child Ballad or heard Almeda Riddle...
...The new one, New Goodbyes, Old Helloes (Flying Fish FF 305), especially underlines her astonishing capacity to get inside so many different kinds of heads and souls...
...1 in F minor, No...
...When Claudia Schmidt is very good, she goes all the way through you...
...In an interpretation of particular verve and immediacy, Vladimir Ashkenazy becomes the guide in a new London set of the Pictures, LDR 71124...
...But there are some epiphanies in Midwestern Heart that will leap right out at you...
...As for further pianistic revelations of the month, there are Alfred Brendel's illuminations of Beethoven's Sonatas No...
...You might also want to write for a catalogue...
...First, there is "Horse Thief," a brisk vintage British tale of how a nubile and very bright girl outwits lech-erously overconfident brigands...
...19 in G minor, and No...
...2 in A. The first and third were dedicated to Joseph Haydn, although the explosive, sometimes demonic force of the first might have shaken the classically balanced Haydn somewhat...
...She has been an actress, to be sure, but most actresses who sing sound as if they're directing the music...
...With Schmidt, the drama comes from how the music breathes...
...Claudia Schmidt becomes that imperfect cookie, just as she transforms herself into the old man and the young girl in "Lady" (from her first album) who share about as gracefully perfect and erotic a state of love as anyone could possibly wish for...
...The music is either good or it's bad...
...It contains six LPs that include most of the essential Lady Day performances, such as "Them There Eyes," "God Bless the Child," and "He's Funny That Way...
...It seems she is a classic proof of Duke Ellington's advice to me and so many others in late-hour seminars on aesthetics: "You have to stop listening in categories," Duke would say...
...From the current set, there is a threnody, "Tired," that frighteningly distills the falling away of a single spirit—and the use-lessness of those who watch the preparations for the suicide...
...But fun and games are hard to abandon, and so I keep listening to new versions, orchestral and piano, of the Pictures: the passage, for instance, of the Polish cart on enormous wheels drawn by oxen...
...Just listen to her startlingly ecumenical one-two punch in her first album, Claudia Schmidt (Flying Fish 066...
...So what is one to make of this woman, born and raised outside Detroit and now living in Milwaukee...
...Box 137, Charlottesville, VA 22902...
...and the catacombs seen-and-heard by the light of a lantern...
...Claudia Schmidt fits into no category...
...Yet the same set contains a wondrously jaunty song about kids who are retarded, disabled, or otherwise "different...
...It's like no-frills flying: You don't always get liner notes and such, but you do get impressive bargains...
...INDIGENOUS MUSIC ^ Nat Hentoff Midwestern Heart She has a rainbow voice of such strength and tenderness that it would have been a sign, in the old fairy tales, of a special presence having attended her christening...
...Blue Angel can be reached at P.O...
...On my way from the cookie pan, a little piece broke off-a me...
...Ever since I was a child, I've been fascinated by the visual power, and playfulness, of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition...
...the dialogue between the rich Jew and the poor Jew (Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle...
...If you want to sample Claudia Schmidt's supply, Flying Fish Records is at 1304 West Schubert, Chicago, IL 60614...
...Later, I learned that true classical music hipsters are expected to deplore programmatic music—as contrasted with "pure" music...
...For instance, a boxed set of The Billie Holiday Story from European CBS Records costs $34.99 plus $3 postage (catalogue item #28126...
...The work in G minor is called "Sonata Facile," a rather tricky label because, as Artur Schnabel once said, it's a work that's too easy for children and too difficult for artists...
Vol. 48 • January 1984 • No. 1
