Music Notes: Strange Bedfellows (OT)

David Sanborn and Jools Holland once had a television show called "Night Music" that typically juxtaposed two very different musicians with disparate styles. Sometimes the combinations landed with a thud and sometimes they soared, and you were never sure which you were going to get.

Here's a strange combination and a musical nugget you might never be aware of if you're not a deep fan of either: the Grateful Dead once performed a concert with Ornette Coleman, of all people, as a guest. My friend Terry alerted me to it. The concert took place at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum on the 23rd of February, 1993, and you can listen to it on Archive. org. If you have a good tolerance for unconventional music or you're just an Ornette Coleman fan (did I just say the same thing twice?), Ornette joins the band on "Space," "The Other One," "Stella Blue" and "Turn On Your Lovelight" from the second set...although some of the other songs from that evening are pretty spacey too—"Drums" features didgeridoo zapping from one stereo channel to the other.

Ornette was repaying a favor—he had enlisted Jerry Garcia, a longtime fan of his, to play on his 1988 album Virgin Beauty. This was one of two concerts for which Ornette joined the band. The concert took place just two and a half years prior to Jerry's untimely demise, and Jerry's voice sounds worn and hoarse, sometimes struggling to stay in tune—it gives his performances a worldly, weary feeling with hints of ruin, like late Billie Holiday.

If you don't know who Ornette is, here's a primer (the word in its meaning of "a short introduction" is pronounced "primmer," not as  "prime" with an "r" at the end).

If you want a concert with guests that were easier to integrate, try this legendary 1970 show at Fillmore East with the Allman Brothers Band and Peter Green sitting in. (Ten life points if you know who Peter Green is.) Start with "Not Fade Away."

Mike
(Thanks to Terry)

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

R.A. Krajnyak: "I'll take Blues Guitarist Extraordinaire and Fleetwood Mac founder for 10 life points, Alex. B.B. King said of him, 'He has the sweetest tone I ever heard; he was the only one who gave me the cold sweats.'"

Rick D: " I remember 'Night Music'! My top two discoveries watching were John Hiatt and a Bulgarian wedding band (really!). We gathered our culture where we could."

Gordon Lewis: "I remember 'Night Music' well. One of my favorite pairings was Leonard Cohen singing 'Who By Fire' backed by Sonny Rollins on tenor sax and the Was Not Was singers on background vocals. It will give you goosebumps even in the summertime."

Mike replies: Yes, that one was sublime—

Comments

[Huw Morgan]

Primer is only pronounced primmer in the US. The rest of the English speaking world pronounces it [in]correctly.

The link for the Allman Brothers seemed to point to the Dead article. I'll bite - who is Peter Green?

[Johan Grahn]

Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac?

[Mr Andrew Johnston]

How many life points do I get if I have seen Peter Green live?

[Just ten, but the maximum in the Oracular and Inscutable Oren Grad System of Life Rewards, the system we are using, seems to be fifteen, so ten is plenty great. --Ed.]

[Tom Burke]

Actually, Mike, in the UK it is pronounced “prime-r”. As is the word for the first coat of paint you put directly on top of wood or metal. Context is everything!

(Which was probably true of the Dead, too.)

[John Ironside]

I thought primer rhymed with timer. The internet tells me that we Brits adopted this pronunciation in the late 19c, while Americans stayed with 'primmer'. ToP is educational, as always!

[Nigel]

Not by me...

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/10036/why-is-primer-pronounced-with-a-short-i-sound

[Graham Byrnes]

"(the word in its meaning of "a short introduction" is pronounced "primmer," not as "prime" with an "r" at the end)."

And why is that? It's not the case in UK English, or the colonial variant I grew up in.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/primer

[David Runyard]

Mike
The word ‘Primer’ is of Anglo-Norman origin and correctly pronounced with a drawn-out 'i' and an 'r' at the end. The Oxford English Dictionary - THE authority on the ENGLISH language, does acknowledge an American version pronounced 'primmer', although personally I have never heard anyone pronounce it like that, and would not know what they are talking about if they did. Nor I suspect, would any English speaker outside of America.

[Paul Van]

You mean there are music fans who *don't* know who Peter Green is?

[David Robinson]

Peter Green, love Albatross

[Tom Simonsen]

I am old enough to know who Peter Green is... He was in Fleetwood Mac, back when they were a blues band. I saw him perfom live back in 2004, on the Notodden Blues Festival. Not a very memorable concert, though. Talking of former Fleetwood Mac members, the Jeremy Spencer concert at the festival in 2005, was very good indeed.

[Speed]

It might be interesting to learn what kind of music your readers like, listen to and spend money on -- three different but overlapping categories.

[Doug Howk]

Peter Green of the original Fleetwood Mac. One of my favorite albums is their "Then Play On" that also featured Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwin on guitars. Peter, unfortunately, got into drugs {LSD?};and never really recovered.

[Doug Thacker]

Joke

Q. What did the Grateful Dead fans say when the drugs wore off?

A. Man, this music sucks.

:-)

[You either love 'em or hate 'em. Or you think they're okay. (Mitch Hedberg joke) --Mike]

[David Comdico]

Albatross is what heaven sounds like.

[James]

Peter Green - now you're talking. He ranks up there at the very top along with Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix and Rory Gallagher!
And no, I didn't miss anyone out ;-)

[Stanleyk]

I'm 60 so I know who Peter Green is. He is a better guitarist than Lindsey Buckingham. :-) I had a girlfriend in the late 70's who made me go see Fleetwood Mac. They sadly performed Oh Well which I must admit I enjoyed more than the other songs at the concert. At least they steered clear of Green Manalishi.

[Ken James]

I am accumulating the points. A long time fan of Ornette Coleman, and I simply love Black Magic Woman by Peter's Fleetwood Mac. Does one have to be old to know this?

[I'm afraid so. Who wrote "Black Magic Woman" anyway? Obviously Carlos Santana made it famous, and Peter Green did it first.... --Mike]

[Keith]

A few years ago my wife and I were attending a Dave Matthews concert. About mid show Dave paused for a moment to talk about some of the people he'd had the opportunity to work with in the music industry. By coincidence one of those people happened to be in the area at the time and Dave invited him to onstage to play. So he introduces Branford Marsalis, who plays throughout the remainder of the show. What a treat.

[Andrew Lamb]

If we're going to give a heads up to Peter Green, I think we should also remember the late Danny Kirwan, who played along side him in Fleetwood Mac. A great talent.

[John Ironside]

To follow-on, I think primmer, pronounced primmer, would mean more prim (as in prim and proper, strictly formal, more uptight?) in modern British.

However the US pronunciations have the benefit of distinguishing between the introductory work and the device or material for initiating an explosion or a paint system. They both rhyme with timer here in the UK.

[Tim Bradshaw]

I once stayed with my wife in a fairly isolated cottage for a week's holiday. There was one other cottage nearby where a rather older couple were staying. We nodded to each other a few times (this is the UK, more would have been unconscionable). The man obviously played the guitar, really rather well. I'm sure he can't have been Peter Green but, well, I'm not actually sure he wasn't, and I like to think that perhaps he was.

[Rod Coots]

https://plus.google.com/102454894933118588101/posts/166KtxRw718

[Ken James]

Peter Green wrote Black Magic Woman

[Mike Plews]

I love unexpected pairings and here is a beauty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoRq1JAwHJg

I have their album. A tribute to Hank Williams and it's great stuff. It kind of reminds me of the masterpiece Chet Atkins did with Les Paul.
Joe Pass did some of his best stuff paired up with Ella Fitzgerald and Roy Clark was a regular with Buck Owens. Cool...

[Tom Burke]

As lots of people have said, Peter Green founded Fleetwood Mac. Indeed, for a while the band was called “Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac”. You all know that John McVie held off from joining for some weeks? A journeyman bassist called Bob Brunning held the spot for that short period. Later he became a teacher and then a head teacher, but sadly died at the age of 68, after a life of non-excess.

And as for Peter Green tracks, i’ve always loved “Man of the World”.

[John Abee]

Speaking of unexpected and delightful musical pairings, i came across a PBS documentary in the mid-90's focused on the overlap of country and rhythm & blues music. The format was duets featuring one country and one R&B performer - legendary tunes and artists. This all seems very obvious but it was all in the execution. Think Al Green with Lyle Lovett or Marty Stuart with the Staple Singers or Little Richard and Tanya Tucker. These performances made permenant impressions on me. You almost had to be there, and I have never successfully tracked down the entire program in any digital video format. I did find in on VHS tape from a Canadian broadcaster and most of the individual performances are available on youtube but the audio is as expected. The CD is widely available and not to be missed. The CD player in my car holds 6-discs. This is always one of them and neither country nor R&B is really my style of music.

[John Abee]

I suppose I should have shared the title of the program (and the CD) described in my earlier comment: Rhythm, Country and Blues. My bad.