![]() ![]() Those yearnings for Mammy of Mine and My Baby, for Dixie and the Land where Skies are Blue and Dreams come True, for Granny and Tennessee and You – they were all a necrophily. ![]() For there was a horrible tang of putrefaction in all that music. Oh, those mammy-songs, those love-longings, those loud hilarities! How was it possible that human emotions intrinsically decent could be so ignobly parodied? I felt like a man who, having asked for wine, is offered a brimming bowl of hog-wash. The spectacle was positively frightening… It was the first time, I realised, that I had ever clearly seen a jazz-band. This page has a quote from Huxley about jazz in Do What You Will (1929). Apparently Huxley liked jazz when he first heard it, but then later came is despise it. I don't think that is meant to be complimentary. The saxophones wailed like melodious cats under the moonĮarly Duke Ellington would have the saxophones, so this description isn't out of the blue.īut, notice the mocking tone: like melodious cats under the moon. ![]() ![]() But really I think you need to also consider authentic folk music which can use odd meters or mixed meters. So, my musical question: To what extent had 5/4 time signatures been a part of the music predating the '60s, and is it possible that Huxley could have drawn influence from those pieces? The same question could be applied to the quarter tones, but I'll stick to one question at at time - this one's complicated enough as is.Īdd to the list of well known 5/4 music Mussorgsky's Promenade from Pictures at an Exhibition. This book was originally published in 1932, way before Desmond and Brubeck's smash hit clearly, the concept of moaning jazz saxophones paired with 5/4 time signatures had not been inspired by "Take 5".īut if 5/4 time signatures were so revolutionary in the late '50s, how on Earth would Huxley have put these ideas together? I haven't even found any reference to Huxley ever being involved with music at all, let alone able to understand such complicated ideas as irregular meter and quarter tones! Phrases like "alto and tenor registers", "a diminuendo sliding gradually, through quarter tones", and "a faintly whispered dominant chord" prove undoubtably that Huxley has had some non-trivial experience with music and music theory (apparently, these phrases aren't proof enough for everyone, but I'll stick to my guns) And then, in all but silence, in all but darkness, there followed a gradual deturgescence, a diminuendo sliding gradually, through quarter tones, down, down to a faintly whispered dominant chord that lingered on (while the five-four rhythms still pulsed below) charging the darkened seconds with an intense expectancy." Rich with a wealth of harmonics, their tremulous chorus mounted towards a climax, louder and ever louder–until at last, with a wave of his hand, the conductor let loose the final shattering note of ether-music and blew the sixteen merely human blowers clean out of existence. The sexophones wailed like melodious cats under the moon, moaned in the alto and tenor registers as though the little death were upon them. Lenina and Henry were soon the four hundred and first. "Four hundred couples were five-stepping round the polished floor. Recently, I have been reading a book (a fictional work unrelated to music) by Aldous Huxley titled Brave New World (1932), containing a passage that interested me: The piece was first recorded in the late 1950s, and it's possibly the most famous piece of music ever to be written with five beats to a measure (next to the Mission: Impossible theme). "Take 5" by Paul Desmond (and famously recorded by the Dave Brubeck Quartet) is one of the more famous jazz standards out there, and one thing any analyst would point out immediately is the tune's 5/4 shuffle, which from what I remember was quite a departure from the normal 4/4 swing at the time. ![]()
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