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Au-dee-o

Hugo Winterhalter Goes Digital

I think I have good taste. In epic thrift store excavations, I’ve gone through hundreds of used records—probably thousands. More than I wanna think about it. There are a lot of bad ones. Mostly, one hopes that one may find something funny to share with one’s friends. Old stuff is weird (admit it). But oh, there are some gems, and usually they don’t fall out of the cracked wooden bin and yell “I’m worth buying off Ebay for $50! Here I am for ¢50!” It takes a trained eye to efficiently sift through the absolute junk at most places.

Or a trained ear. Finding an incredible record has a lot to do with knowing what you like in the first place—although for those wanting to take up the hobby, it’s perfectly reasonable to make it up as you go along. A good place to start? By all means, judge by their covers. Me, I happen to know that I like gypsy music. I pick up many records simply because they contain in their titles one of these: Gypsy, Roma, klezmer, or Bulgaria. In general I also recommend looking out for: home recording, demonstration, spectacular, incredible, “_____ and the [word intensifier]s,” Moog, olde tyme, fart, and dinosaur. It’s a wide net, a rough algorithm, but it get’s results.

Which is what brings me back to “gem.” I got one. I wasn’t able to actually play it until I found a new record player on the street (thank you, city of cannibals). Even after I discovered its magnificence I didn’t pick up the phone on the ol’ Share-The-Love hotline until a roommate suggested it. And then I had to fiddle with knobs and buttons and wires and other esoteric equipment, only to discover that no matter what I did, the digital transfers just didn’t measure up to my high standards. I’m a wizard with audio software… but there’s no way to get pristine audio from salvaged parts. Get what you pay for, I guess.

But wait, what was this musical masterpiece, I hear you say? Let’s listen to the first track:

Even through my peasant’s needle, you can hear the tambourine sparkle… the horns shimmer… the tubas thump… the piano tinkle… the flutes shriek. It’s exciting! It’s powerful! We’ve heard this song before, but not like this. Easy listening and exotica both seem to apply, but can’t measure the appeal of the real nifty fifties, big bang band, swank-ocracy. Mostly the album is made up of low-key low-tempo stuff, soothing music that might be played without irony on KWXY, which might very well bore you. The poppy ones sure do pop though. On all of them, the arrangement is top-notch and the production values are beyond reproach.

This makes sense considering that the arranger was none other than Hugo Winterhalter, musical director at RCA for more than a decade. This album is dated 1960. For the time, I’m sure, it was somewhat standard. It’s a formula: take a bunch of songs people know, ones that you can tie together with a theme, write them for ensemble, make it modern and “now!”; you have yourself an easy sell. It’s a formula, and it worked. Still does.

Some say stuff like this is more craftsmanship that artistry. It’s the carpenter’s work, not the sculptor’s. I had a music teacher who made the same comparison between Bach and Mozart. He said that while Mozart was a genius, transcended forms and gave the world beautiful music heard neither before nor since (etc., etc.), Bach was simply working within established convention—and when you wanted a fugue, he made the best. They were differently brilliant. Both men became immortal through their music. If you’re like me, though, you have to respect Bach a little bit more. It’s a clever mind that can conjure immortality working with someone else’s rules. I’m thinking that Mr. Winterhalter was a Bach fan.

Now I’m getting a little antsy thinking about how poor my equipment is, and how enjoyable some of the actual songs are, and how there’s hardly any CDs of Winterhalter available, and how it might be up to me to handle this guy’s continued existence. Then I remember the long tail, realize I’ve been praising the guy for seven paragraphs, and things are probably gonna be ok. I’m hesitant about uploading the good stuff (hand-restored LAME V2 mp3s) because I understand perfection, and I understand pragmatism, and I understand that they aren’t the best of friends. Let it be known across the land that I sadly consider these songs as “orphan works,” and hereby claim stewardship of them until someone better steps up. For goodness’ sake, even if you have a better record player step up. Here are the songs from “Hugo Winterhalter Goes… Gypsy!” that will thank you if you do:

  1. Hungarian Dance No. 5 (2:53)
  2. The Back of Her Head (3:08)
  3. Hora Staccato (3:12)
  4. Golden Earrings (3:46)
  5. When a Gypsy Makes his Violin Cry (3:08)
  6. Francesca (3:17)
  7. Csárdás (4:32)
  8. Zigeuner (3:16)
  9. Gypsy Don’t You Cry (3:53)
  10. Gypsy Love Song (2:58)

Total playing time – 34:05

Without further ado, I give you the imperfect recording of my favorite thrift store record in the past year:

Front Cover, Hugo Winterhalter Goes GypsyHugo Winterhalter Goes Gypsy (full album, direct download)

2 image files (front & back cover), 10 mp3 audio files,
LAME 3.97 codec at V2 quality, 50.1 MB

Categories
Au-dee-o

Queen of the Gypsies

In 2003, I was in love with Gypsy music. Dotted my i’s with Gypsy hearts. There is something in it and you can’t know what it is—not without hearing it. Rhythms of wild abandon, strains of endless longing, mysteries of an eternally foreign tongue. And listening to it made me different. That’s very important, these days, what with individuality the commodity it is.

I remember once, I was taking a weight-training class over the summer. The music in there was shit, absolute shit. Unpalatable for all its mass palatability and wholly unlistenable. This happened to be the same year, the summer of one CD, where we listened to my legendary and unstoppable Romano-Klezmer mix all night & every day. Known as “polka music,” or “proteins” to some, this mix, among other things:

  • probably got burned about 3 dozen times
  • spun-off two sequels
  • was traded multiple times
  • got me a girlfriend (no, really!)
  • was also unashamedly played at a gay prom
  • caused fools bumpin’ 50¢ to do a double-take
  • was played on the last day of that dumb gym class and not only made me a frickin’ star for a day, but struck that teacher speechless with awe, respect, and the possible paradigm-shattering recognition of his essential lameness

It was the result of an unplanned experiment… a CD-mixing experiment… to see if I could somehow retain a coherent focus for a whole CD. Beginning in April I began a mass downloading campaign, across an ocean, utilizing my precision-strike hit/miss method. I stormed “Macedonia”, claimed everything “Romano,” “Romany,” “Roma,” and pillaged neighboring “Bulgaria” just in case. No “orkestar” was safe. As they feebly attempted to thwart my efforts, I was forced to spell “Klezmer” eight different ways. From my vantage in front of a standard Dell-issue laptop I calculated catchiness, accessibility, theme, novelty, and overall awesomeness. By the end of May I had captured nearly a gig of material—the hard part was still to come.

As it turned out, the hard part was determining what my friends would actually listen to. The final mix came down to 21 paradigm-and-silence-shattering tracks, clocking in at exactly 79 minutes 57 seconds, all of which I now know by heart. The songs gained their own characters. Some were requested more often, people choosing favorites between themselves. But the single track that could be called the group favorite: Esma Redzepova – Caje Sukarije. It was the track that inspired the subject matter—the catchiest, gypsiest track of the bunch.

The Queen of such music has to be one fine Rom. And so she is—one of the most interesting cultural pillars you’ve never heard of. She has twice been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, has performed in more than 8000 concerts in 30 countries, and with her late husband Stevo Teodosievski has fostered forty-seven children. Those of you paying attention will note that I just directly quoted plagiarized from the Wikipedia entry. Well smartie, that’s because I wrote it. They plagiarized me (by way of me writing it). I really have a fondness for the Gypsy music. Some might even say that I have made a conscious decision to identify with this media in order to appropriate it’s positive aspects into my own. I hereby claim this land…

To that end, I made something myself to share. I give you, a torrent: Esma Redzepova’s classic double-CD album “Queen of the Gypsies” available in convenient downloadable fashion.

link to torrent page