June 26 saw the demise of the famed Argentine-American pianist, composer, arranger, and conductor Lalo Schifrin at the age of 93.
He is best known for his work as a composer for films and television shows going back to the 1950s. I listened to a compilation of his “greatest hits” and relived some of those films or shows I had watched.
I had forgotten that he was responsible for the film score to the 1973 martial arts blockbuster Enter the Dragon, my introduction to Bruce Lee and my brother’s pin-up hero. Listening to the music once again brough back memories of the kung fu craze, the Bruce Lee hairstyle (and bloodcurdling yells and flying kicks to go with it) and improvised nanchakus from discarded sticks from the Vaglo cloth store. Nothing can take you back in time like music. So much Hindi film music was “inspired” by this track.
It is a testament to Schifrin’s versatility and adaptability that he could make his music just as fresh and relevant through all the intervening decades to the present. He will probably be most remembered by today’s young generation for scoring the Mission Impossible theme. I hadn’t realised that the distinctive tune in 5/4 time with its dash-dash dot-dot metre spells out in Morse code the letters M and I, for Mission Impossible. Pretty ingenious.
After I had listened to Schifrin’s “life in music” in terms of film and television scores, I decided to explore his wider oeuvre. I was intrigued by a composition titled Jazz Suite on Mass Texts, originally released on the RCA Victor label in 1965, composed and conducted by Schifrin. The tracks are titled Kyrie, Interludium, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Prayer, Offertory and Agnus Dei.
Scored for choir and an assortment of woodwind, brass, harp, vibraphone, piano, bass, drums and other percussion, I have to say that with the possible exception of the last track (Agnus Dei), the album left me cold.
I found a review which chastised reactions like mine: “Certainly much of the record can be found leading into the realm of experimental music, and the critical listener should not be so critical, but rather sit, enjoy, and open their mind and listening senses.”
To me, (on a first listening at any rate; I’ll revisit it soon) the Mass text (sung by the choir in English although the titles are in Latin) seems tacked on to the jazzy accompaniment. The sung text could just as well have been the contents of recipe cookbook for all the impact it made.
As I trawled through YouTube for the above track, I found a set that resonated much more with me, and that I hadn’t heard before.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the American jazz composer, conductor and pianist Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington’s Concert of Sacred Music (1965), the same year as Schifrin’s Jazz Suite on Mass Texts.
Ellington followed this up with his Second Sacred Concert in 1968 and Third in 1973. He called these concerts “the most important thing I have ever done”. Ellington died on May 27, 1974, from complications of lung cancer and pneumonia, six months after his last Sacred Concert performance.
He clarified many times that he was not trying to compose a Mass.
The 1965 concert took place as part of a series of events called “Festival of Grace” to celebrate the opening of San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral. The Very Reverend C Julian Bartlett, the cathedral Dean, who invited him, wrote that “Duke Ellington has been endowed by God with the gift of genius”, calling him “one of the giants of contemporary music.”
But not everyone was a fan. As critic Richard S. Ginell puts it, at the time “conservatives called it a blasphemous attempt to sully religion with jazz” while “radicals thought it was a sellout on bended knee to organized religion”. Both Schifrin and Ellington (and later Dave Brubeck) responded to progressive members of the clergy in taking up the challenge of fusing Christian texts with jazz.
Another critic Gary Giddins described these concerts as Ellington bringing the Cotton Club revue to the church. I’ve not found the original review to assess whether this comparison was meant as compliment or sniffing dismissal.
Listening and watching the footage of that same concert, I hear the influence of Gospel and spirituals, tapping into Ellington’s evidently deep faith. It would be difficult to find a more sincere and heartfelt offering than Esther Marrow singing Ellington’s treatment of The Lord’s Prayer or Come Sunday.
In the Beginning God connects Genesis with the 20th century with this lyric to underline the emptiness: “No poverty, no Cadillacs, no sand traps, no mudpacks...no bottom, no topless...no birds, no bees, no Beatles....”
The programme is a montage from several stages in Ellington’s career, reflecting how seamlessly his belief seeped into his art.
The concert ends with a tap dance routine by Bunny Briggs, who Ellington introduces tongue-in-cheek, tongue-twistingly as “the most super-leviathonic, rhythmaturgically syncopated taps-the-maticianisamist” to David Danced before the Lord with all his Might and a reprise of Come Sunday.
The Second Sacred Concert, this time using fresh compositions premiered at New York’s Cathedral of St John the Divine, but no recording of it exists. It was subsequently recorded in a studio. It was the first time Alice Babs (dubbed “the Swedish Julie Andrews”) appeared with Ellington’s band, singing Heaven, Almighty God Has Those Angels (with stunning improvisations by Johnny Hodges on alto saxophone and by Russell Procope on clarinet), the wordless vocal aptly named T.G.T.T. (“Too Good to Title”) and Praise God and Dance.
The song Freedom is introduced by Ellington as “that much used, often misused word” and he ends it with an eloquent tribute to his friend Billy Strayhorn, who had died recently.
Shepherd Who Watches Over the Night Flock is a tribute to pastor John Genzel, New York City, who Ellington says “has made many sacrifices to help the people who live at night, by night or through the night, if they’re lucky” with brooding “growl” trumpet by Cootie Williams.
By the Third Sacred concert (which premiered in London’s Westminster Abbey in 1973), Ellington, stricken with lung cancer, was aware that his end was near. “Is God a three-letter word for love? Is Love a four-letter word for God?” he asks, adding “Whether former or later, really doesn’t matter.”
The concert was held on October 24, which is United Nations Day, commemorating the anniversary of the entry into force of the UN Charter in 1945. Introducing the performance, British diplomat Sir Colin Crowe said, “The UN is once again in the eye of a storm”, a reference to the 1973 Arab-Israeli so-called Yom Kippur or Ramadan war. He added, “…and without disrespect to the Secretary-General, if only Duke Ellington had to conduct their debates, maybe we really should get some harmony.”
Half a century later, the United Nations is even more impotent, and due to the same region of the world. It seems doomed to go the way of the League of Nations before it, into the dustbin of history.
A version of this article first appeared in The Navhind Times, Goa. It has been reproduced with the permission of the writer.
