Tomorrow's Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in Jeddah is shaping up to be a complex clockwork of a number of inner races - wheels within wheels, so to speak - all on a fast, twisty track.
With pole position favorite Max Verstappen dropped down to 15th because of a drive shaft problem with the car, tomorrow's race is now a very different game. Red Bull is still keeping its dominance however, with teammate Checo Perez holding P1 - and as this is his kind of course, he's in good place to keep it.
However, Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso also does well on street circuit style courses and is on P2. Both Alonso and the Aston Martin car shined in Bahrain and this will be an exciting duel for first.
Ferrari's Leclerc placed at P2 time-wise but is midfield after a 10 position penalty and is at P12.
Leclerc and Verstappen, therefore, will have an interesting battle as they each climb their way up the field. This will make for some really excellent driving to watch , and is the second sub race to keep an eye on. In terms of sheer skill and car performance ( assuming the issue is fixed and reliable), Verstappen will excel at this if anyone can. I look for him to chew his way up the field and potentially finish in the top five. He is, undoubtedly, that good.
Mercedes' George Russell and Ferrari's Carlos Sainz are at P3 and P4 respectively.
I'll give the slight edge to Ferrari here because it's more of Sainz' style of circuit, and Russell, by his own admission in a post quali interview (what's the wisdom of revealing strategy?) indicated more of a preoccupation of keeping Verstappen at bay rather than seeking to get on podium himself.
Both the Ferrari and Mercedes cars are proving problematic, however, so there's no real surety either can maintain their approximate positions in the field.
The midfielders are very tightly clustered this year, with some teams (Alpine, Haas) showing a lot of progress over previous years and nearly all of these midfield drivers having really excellent moments.
Any of them - Alonso's Aston Martin teammate Lance Stroll (P5); Alpine's Ocon or Gasly ( P6, P9); McLaren's Piastri (P8), if his car cooperates; Haas' Hulkenberg (P10); will at least hold their own and work to move around each other for maximum points, and maybe even nip at the heels of podium range, especially if the cars of Russell and Sainz falter.
That particular midfield cluster I'm very excited to watch and for me is the third little inner race for tomorrow.
Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton at P7 I expect to drop below P10; for the moment he's lost his will and interest, it seems.
As to the rest of the field, I see Magnussen with Haas able to move up the field some, and the Williams team has potential to do well tomorrow. Another one of the backfield teams showing good momentum this year, they did well in practice but a deleted lap in qualifying put them at the end of the grid. However, they have the push and the pluck to move ahead.
100 years ago, the subversively creative team of Nijinsky and Stravinsky premiered Rite Of Spring in Paris to a crowd that rioted in disbelief and outrage, making the event one of the original protopunk moments of our time.
Stravinsky loved to take full credit for his work creating the ruckus, but other accounts confirm it wasn't just the music.
It's easy to see from the original choreographic reconstruction, brought to light by the Joffrey Ballet in 1989, why the dance -- maybe even more so than the score alone -- created such an uproar. The antithesis of ballet's flighty heavenbound trajectories, this was movement firmly rooted in the earth: pelvis and belly, contraction and restriction and struggle. Even after 90 years of modern dance, the original mold-shattering work is still bracingly fresh in many ways.
Other versions abound, of course, with varying artistic impact. The 1959 Bejart version of boy meets girl, boy mates girl doesn't age well: 54 years later, it's facile and obvious, titillating dated shock value but not much depth:
and the terrifiying lonely vulnerability captured by Angelin Preljocaj (warning: the last segment of Preljocaj's version contains full nudity, but it seems well served in context ).
:
Preljocaj's take is somewhat sporadic and veers a little more to the hormonal come-hither aspects of Bejart's work than Bausch's piece, which puts a powerful spin on the tale of sacrifice as societal renewal implicit in the original. Preljocaj mixes both elements and with a sexuality much more seductive and complex than Bejart's soft-porn antics.
Overall, Preljocaj' take is a dark and lonely piece and triumphs over its weaker moments.
But it all started 100 years ago with that original subversion in Paris.
Raising a glass to the masters and to any art that defies the odds and breaks convention everywhere.
Here are the versions mentioned above, in playlist sequence:
One of the joys of being human is how music can move us so forcefully, how sound can open the heart and leave you in tears.
For me, such moments are iconic and memorable, but few, as I'm a hard person to please, so I'm told. But there are a few: Miles Davis in the right phrase, Coltrane or Ayler in the right phrase, and especially Cecil Taylor's luminescent solo moments and the right matchup of Rabrindasongeet (the collected music output of Rabindranath Tagore) with the right singer.
And if you can experience these moments live, so much the better.
Tonight, I'll add one more.
As much as I've always admired and respected Led Zeppelin's body of work -- particularly their live work and ethos -- I never imagined they would literally move me to tears by how they made music together one night in December 2007, documented in the "Celebration Day" film.
But damn, they did.
And I'm not just being a fanboi. It is an evening of transcendent music making and communication, regardless of genre or style, delivered and sculpted with a deep energy -- not the restless itchy exuberance of youth, but with the deep intensity of wisdom and experience.
The first clue to this is in the set list itself, which my son and I were pondering over dinner before seeing the film. It doesn't follow the typical arc of 1) out-of-the-gate assault, 2) relax, 3) build up again. The band instead opts for something far more risky and special: a continuous ramp-up of intensity and complexity and history, a near-perfect 45 degree angle line if you were graphing it.
Not only does that mean you need the stamina to pull it off (no mean feat for rocking in your 60s) but moreover, the confidence and security that you can command it, that how you deliver and pace the music will speak for itself.
By and large, it does.
The band fully controls the pace of the show, but they also impose that discipline on the tunes themselves. Many tunes seem downtempo by just a click or two, and while some may snort and be tempted to dismiss it as senior citizen sluggishness, it doesn't come across that way. It's never complacent or sleepy.
What we see instead is a controlled, relaxed discipline, an ownership of the music and the time frame, a "patience, young padawan" vibe that lets the music breathe, allowing LZ to live in it and infuse it with a deeper, unforced kind of energy that slowly builds a huge rolling wave over two hours.
Led Zeppelin is gripping because they so expertly thrive and navigate the juncture of two fronts, which they've also mastered in turn:
1) As writers, they had a harmonic sophistication and dynamic layering ( "shades of light and dark," as Page says) that set them far apart. Even shorter tunes had this epic, symphonic feel to them ( "The Song Remains The Same," "Four Sticks," "Rain Song") with shifts in texture, tone, mood, layers, rhythm.
2) They were also master communal improvisors in some very subtle ways, far more creative, compelling and responsive IMO than the Grateful Dead or indeed most any 'jam band' out there these days. Although Led Zeppelin's musical vocabulary was different, you'd have to get to early Mahavishnu or some of the free-jazz groups of that era (or since) to find groups that could sustain that level of interplay and keep it interesting. And even then, Zeppelin could beat some of those bands at their own game.
At its best, live extended Zeppelin wasn't about long solos or the guitar, but rather taking the band through some epic spontaneous trajectories that could be a pretty amazing journey. OK, an aside and an obligatory caveat: Not every concert throughout their career was their best. And did they succumb now and then in their career on the stage to incoherent excess? Sure they did, but name me one band that improvises and takes risks -- in jazz or any genre -- that doesn't fall prey to that. We all do. If you're a musician and reading this, come out of the closet and admit it. You are LYING to me if you say you improvise and claim you never had an off night where you couldn't or didn't listen and so you just wanked.
On this night, though,, Led Zeppelin distilled and contained the expansiveness: everything was condensed, served its purpose, stripped down to its essence. The journeys and interplay still happen, but they're subtle, deeper, and go by quicker - making the whole set somehow more more thrilling and dangerous than other LZ live outings . It's music-making on hairpin curves rather than long straightaways.
"Dazed and Confused," for example, gets a taut, tight, dark, menacing treatment, almost Sabbath -esque. It's not perfunctory or reluctant -- they never phone it in -- but given Plant's opening remark to the song about tunes they 'd have to do, the band's lean-and-mean focus here may include a bit of agenda or catharsis.
(courtesy photo) a moment from "In My Time Of Dying," from the Led Zeppelin concert film "Celebration Day"
The lack of complacency also shows in putting "For Your Life" on the set list, a song never before done live. The fact that they would include a non-road tested tune, along with all the other subtle tweakings and musical conversations throughout the evening, reveals a band still willing to take risks, open it up, put care and effort and give it their all and not merely do a greatest hits retread.
They still make everything sound fresh -- and to me, that's remarkable.
Except for some of the hallmark Page /Plant trading, which seems to have been cut back dramatically, not anything else seems missing. Its all there, trimmed and focused. Tempi may be slower, but songs are shorter as well -- so every moment, filled with a note or not, has to be imbued with a certain presence and energy. That makes for an intense two hours. Of course, such an approach puts the pressure on each member to make every note count -- and they do.
They are all in fine form. It's great to see John Paul Jones claim some physical space on stage, relaxed and genuinely enjoying the moment. Nimble and fleet fingered, with lines and groove that lock in but stay supple, it's also a treat to finally hear him well (a problem in previous live mixes on DVDs and releases).
Bonham fils had the heaviest burden of the evening, given the lineage and legacy. To his credit, he honored that beautifully by being his own voice, stripping away any basis for nitpicky comparison from drum geeks (credit is also due to the elders on the bandstand to allow him that liberty).
His tone, attack, phrasing, sense of time placement in fills, are all so radically different from Bonham pere, and yet it fits. Some of the slower tempi allow him room to place fills with a very different rhythmic aesthetic and arc than his father, and he makes some interesting twists and contributions throughout that the band seems to love.
Robert Plant is on target, engaging and assured. He's kept to lower registers for years, but have no doubt: he still has his range and will call on it when needed. And when he does, it's spot on: penetrating, captivating, perfectly placed and tuned.
Jimmy Page has never been better, internalizing the stripped-down-but-deeper approach. Solos are shorter, but long enough to say what they need to and serve the song; he's pulling out new textures and tones (most notably the use of the Whammy pedal), but the signature tones remain (though a slight use of chorus gives his sound a bit more fluidity over the early days).
In live clips over the years, Page always seems happiest when he can take the role of a sonic painter and orchestral guide rather than as a guitar god, even when soloing. Liberated from the guitar god ball and chain simply by virtue of seniority and legacy --i.e., you've earned it, we'll let you move on now -- he seems at ease.
That liberty empowers him to go deep. His phrasing is longer, elongated, pulling out of time at places to great effect, allowing notes to free-fall. There are moments of great heartfelt ingenuity and magic, and -- without giving away spoilers -- one solo moment in particular that is heart -wrenchingly, powerfully perfect.
So how is "Celebration Day" as a concert film? Surprisingly moving.
Apart from two brief flashes of mirror-image -split-screen tribute to Led Zeppelin's first concert film "The Song Remains The Same," the approach from director Dick Carruthers doesn't call attention to itself. He's sensitive and transparent, getting out of the way and letting the music -- but more importantly, the music process --tell its own story. The camera work captures all the glances, smiles and nonverbal exchanges in tightly framed shots that feel intimate and natural, but never invasive.
Those moments are in fact the basis of the film's narrative, and there are far too many of them to recall from one viewing: Jason Bonham turning a subtle of twist of groove for eight bars and making Jimmy smile; Jason's final well - earned extended fill in the last encore eliciting great grins of almost parental pride and approval from the elders onstage; Jones enjoying everything around him; Plant smiling at Page's unexpected change of note in their duet passage at the end of the bow sequence in "Dazed and Confused;" Page smiling at a well-turned phrase from Plant; Plant even surprising himself after a turn of phrase with a sheepish grin, as if to say, "wow I didn't know where that came from."
It's a very personal and vulnerable vantage point, both in the physical sense of being onstage with the band members, but also emotionally, by being so privy to the relationship and dynamic of the band as they create. In a less subtle cinematic hand, such an approach could have been exploitative or voyeuristic, but Carruthers makes you feel invited and welcome: it's OK to be in that space.
That's the beauty and power of this film, cinematically: by collecting all these nonverbal narratives opened up by the band's invitation to share their process, you don't just watch as an audience member hundreds of yards away some songs being played -- instead, you're invited to experience, very closely, how music is made.
If you're a Led Zeppelin fan, then of course go see this film. Or if you want to see a powerful testament to the creative collective process, then see this film.
Because it's really more than Led Zeppelin. This film celebrates and captures something for any art: the spark of collective creative will in the service of making something bigger than its parts.
In a moment that parallels Bollywood --I think the James Bond franchise is the only example in Western cinema where a film's music can be as eagerly anticipated as the film itself -- the song for the new James Bond film was released last week to much anticipation.
But is it any good?
Ok, I won't mince words here:
I can't stand Adele.
Really, why young female
white singers think that overwrought phrasing and garbled diction is all
they need to qualify as "soulful" and claim lineage to the R and B
tradition is beyond me. That people buy this empress' new clothes
routine is equally mystifying.
That said, she's not talent free -- and I actually don't mind her on this song. She tries to
steer clear (not entirely successfully) of the Etta James/Aretha wannabe
trap, doesn't garble too much (though her enunciation is still odd),
hits some interesting leaps with effortless ease.
Its the first slight
inkling I get that if she can step out from the hype surrounding her and
find her own style and path, she could , in fact, be truly as amazing
as everyone is led to believe she is at the moment. Vocally, this is the
first glimmer of real original promise.
That said, I hate the
song, or at least the production of it. This is James Bond as muzak,
downtempo, easy listening.
The overwrought rhyming in places is
embarrassing, as are the backing vocals in the chorus , which -- along
with the turgid orchestral arrangement (more lugubrious than other Bond
outings) -- gives the whole thing a bad
early-70s-Drs-office-waiting-room-hearing
-soundtracks-of-questionable-though-critically-acclaimed-French-films
sort of feel to it. Cue up the shag carpet and Claude Lelouche and faded
Kodacolor.
The piece lacks energy, spark, gutpunch, vitality.
It's an insult that on James Bond's 50th anniversary, the theme song gets
a production geared for the geriatric set. I'm 50 next year and don't
feel near this sluggish.
And this also marks the third theme in
a row-- interestingly, all the Daniel Craig era ones -- heavily built
around the i-VI-IV progression. "You Know My Name," "Another Way to
Die," and "Skyfall" are all based around it, the only difference being
"Skyfall" transposed up a 1/2 step from the first two's Bmin -- G -- E
rendition.
It's very James Bond, of course, with DNA going back to
earlier films, but time to change it up a bit.
Won't be
surprised if Cornell/Arnold sue, as the way vocal line contours against
the chords in the new one is quite close ( though not exactly) to "You Know My Name:"
At the request of some folk who sometimes like what I say, this is a new home for thoughts and ideas that that don't fall into the purview of my other work.
Ideas and observations for related to that work -- crisis communications, media, business consulting, marketing , branding, Middle Eastern affairs, etc -- are explored here.
But there's room to think and live outside of that, so this is a roof for everything else, but primarily two areas:
A relatively newfound fascination with automobiles and performance cars. Next to musical instruments, there's perhaps no other object where form and function can have such an intense symbiosis and achieve such pinnacles of expression.There's also the art of driving well, something I hope to pursue.
I can't deny the possibility that a little professional crossover may occur: automotive marketing and branding, product planning, how the marques are faring in the industry, the latest developments. Some of the most interesting ad work and communications efforts come from this industry.
I'll also dissect, trash and praise music. As a musician, people often ask me what I think of this tune or that tune, and people are often surprised at my answers. I'll point out hidden gems that are scoffed at or dismissed, as well
as shoot down some sacred cows and call out the nakedness of some
emperors and empresses.
But I call it as I see it. And it's only a perspective, not a fatwa, so relax!
