Serving up a musical cocktail: eighth blackbird’s tasty music fusion
The words "crossover" and "fusion" are perhaps the most frightening in the music descriptive lexicon.
A few thoughts. 1) I would like to purchase, and subsequently destroy, all copies of this lexicon of which you speak. 2) It is true, there is a lot of bad “crossover” and “fusion” music. However, there is a lot of bad music, period. “Bad” is not genre-specific. Except New Age. That is bad. 3) Of all of the words in the music descriptive lexicon, I would nominate “bad” as the most frightening. “Out-of-tune?”
They indicate a self-conscious crossing of a barrier -- from "classical" to "pop," say -- or a marriage of things that just don't taste great together.
Sometimes. Sometimes they indicate this. You write as if genre-bending is a new idea. I submit that it’s as old as recorded music history.
Yet there are successful ways to bring different influences together.
What? Yes. That’s not what you…
See, for example, the marvelous Chicago-based new music sextet eighth blackbird (the "birds," as their fans call them, don't capitalize their name).
You don’t say. Non-capitalization is a personal pet peeve. Every music department has that one guy who refuses to capitalize basically anything he writes (including his name) which marks him as the second coming of John Cage. We get it. You’re avant-garde, at least in your mind.
e. e. cummings is great. The "birds" also, in their name, reference Wallace Stevens. He used capital letters, when appropriate.
Saturday night at the
“Arrived at enchantment”? Wow. That sounds like parody. But, sadly, no.
However. The ensemble mentioned is really rather good, as is the rest of the article. The concert sounds like it was good, too. But “arrived at enchantment” sounds like something from The Simpsons.
Homer and Marge walk into a day spa. Over the loudspeaker, a voice says:
“Welcome! You’ve arrived…at enchantment!”