[Dixielandjazz] Van Morrison, The Louis Armstrong & John Cage Influence?

Steve barbone barbonestreet at earthlink.net
Wed Apr 26 06:26:42 PDT 2006


Van Morrison under the influence of Louis Armstrong & John Cage? :-) VBG.
Below snipped from a NY Times review.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

Van Morrison Explores the Unknowable, Sometimes in Silence

By BEN RATLIFF - NY TIMES - Published: April 26, 2006

Van Morrison is interested in the unknowable, the forces that can't love you
as you love them. This could be why, in running through streams of
semi-improvised words and phrases in a performance, he mentions the names of
deceased singers ‹ Jackie Wilson, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Witherspoon ‹ almost
as liturgy. 

It could also be why, in the best parts of his show in the Theater at
Madison Square Garden on Monday, he didn't use words at all. It could
explain the silences seamed into his phrasing, which he controls uniquely
but probably adapted from Louis Armstrong's roomy, airy swing.

It could also explain a moment that arrived in a version of Don Gibson's "I
Can't Stop Loving You." Mr. Morrison ordered his three background singers ‹
who did not make a particularly good foreground sound ‹ to fill in two
verses of the song. As they sang, he approached the microphone to interject
something as antiphony. He opened his mouth, raised a hand, and then stopped
himself and backed away, and this void was part of his performance too.

----end snip




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