Articles by Eric Pettine
Why Steely Dan Can Never Really Be Yacht Rock
by Eric Pettine
This article was first published on All About Jazz on April 20, 2019. The website Really Smooth Music provides the definition of the term Yacht Rock as being “a variation of popular Soft Rock that peaked between the years of 1976 and 1984 (as featuring a) highly polished brand of soft rock that emanated from Southern California during the late '70s and early '80s. The term is meant to suggest the kind of smooth, mellow music that early ...
Continue ReadingFrank Zappa: The Grand Wazoo
by Eric Pettine
Frank Zappa didn't invent the word “wazoo" or proliferate its usage. However, he was the first to use it in an album and song title that, surprisingly, had no accompanying provocative/potentially censorable lyrics. The Grand Wazoo is one of the most playful, scatologic-free and accessible big band jazz/rock CDs that Zappa--or anyone else--recorded. The aural quality of the album possesses a life-affirming spirit, while the intermittent blurps, bleeps and “inside" soap opera buffoonery--once salient features amidst often brilliant instrumental interludes ...
Continue ReadingAmerica's Been Tough On Jazz
by Eric Pettine
In America, he's his own man—he's got to be—no corporation seeks him out or needs him. Her attitude and attire doesn't always “cut it" with the latest vogue. He doesn't really have a particular deadline or agenda to meet. She's “got her ax down" and she's ready to carve out her own market share. He's got to lay it down and play it down with nary a flaw to be detected by friend or foe. She has no company vacation ...
Continue ReadingAmerica's Been Tough On The Jazzman
by Eric Pettine
Not only does he have to master his ax, isolate himself (to an extent) from mainstream society to create in solitude, engage in often maddening self-denial, but the jazzman is constantly judged by his creations on the spot by his listening audience and as well as by his peers. Most doctors and lawyers don't have to endure that kind of intense scrutiny. Popular professional sports figures maybe endure that public pickiness for a season but get paid more in one ...
Continue ReadingPatrick Williams: Threshold
by Eric Pettine
Patrick Williams Threshold Capitol 1973 Throughout most of the 1960s, Patrick Williams was one of many composers/arrangers kicking around the NYC studio music scene. In the late '60s he arranged/composed several Muzak-molded LPs ( Heavy Vibrations , Think and Shades of Today among them) that only occasionally hinted at the ebullience and brilliance unleashed on his 1974 Grammy Award winning album Threshold. Perhaps due to his nationally successful composing/arranging credits for ...
Continue ReadingThat Grand Dan Sound: Why Everyone Knows Steely Dan When They Hear Them
by Eric Pettine
Ok, so Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk and Dave Brubeck used them throughout the 1950s. In the 1960s and most of the 1970s, adventurous and ambitious horn-adorned groups like Chicago and Blood, Sweat and Tears also experimented successfully with them too. But we're talking cool chords (and their various permutations) here folks, not drugs. It's pretty much accepted by the general populace how great the writing/performing talents of, say, Billy Joel, Elton John and Paul McCartney are. ...
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