Barney & Clyde and an Old Friend

It was just a throw away gag for a daily strip. But it was done well.

In the April 17, 2015 sequence of Barney & Clyde, Dwayne interviews a job seeker. (click on image to enlarge)

Of course the humor revolves around the cultural legacy of Bazooka Joe. His raison d'etre was indeed to sell gum. Topps Company began selling their Bazooka brand bubble gum in 1947. In 1953 or 1954 (sources vary), they introduced Bazooka Joe and his Gang as a comic feature. The comic (like the one pictured below) was wrapped inside the package, and included a fortune and a premium one could get with a boatload of Bazooka Joe comics and a little bit of cash.

The top panel shows most of the regulars, including (L to R), Mort,
Pesky (Joe's kid brother),Hungry Herman,  Jane (Joes girlfriend),
and finally Bazooka Joe.

Topps discontinued the comic insert in 2012 (as mentioned in the Barney and Clyde sequence), Although the company still uses Joe occasionally, for all intents and purposes, he's disappeared. To any kid who chewed gum in the late 20th century, Bazooka Joe was a familiar comic character. Kudos to Gene Weingarten, Dan Weingarten and David Clark for the reference.

Florent Schmitt - Sonate libre

Florent Schmitt was a near-contemporary of Claude Debussy, though he lived much longer. Debussy died before the end of the First World War, while Schmitt lived on through the Second World War as well as the start of the Cold War (he died in 1958). .

While their contemporaneous music has some similarites, Schmitt's music has (to my ears) more clarity than Debussy's soft-focus impressionism. (I'm not slighting Debussy; just trying to describe Schmitt's music for those not familiar with it.) .

Beata Halska and Claudio Chaiquin present a program of Schmitt violin and piano works that show the composer at his best. .

Written in 1901, Quatre Piéces fairly drips with fin de siècle romantic expression. While the melodies are wistfully sweet, the harmonies look forward, rather than back, with Debussian harmonic motion and chord structure. In some passages (particuarly the second and fourth movements) the thickly stacked chords with their sevenths and ninths sounded more like a classic jazz ballad than a classical composition. (That's not a complaint.) .

The Habeyssé, Op. 110 is another major work on the album. Written in 1947, its a much more angular work. Shifting meters and some lightly atonal passages make it sound like a modern work, but one that clearly is part of the same continuum as the Quatre Piéces.

The massive Sonate libre (1919) is 30 minutes of imaginative, seemingly free-flowing music. It reminded me of Messiaen's music (a composer Schmitt admired), but there's nothing derivative here. This is a work that requires fire and imagination to play, and the team of Halska and Chaiquin have it. They're perfectly in synch expressively. plus they both have the precision necessary to pull off Schmitt's cascading runs. .

The quality of the music and the performance is first-rate, in my opinion. My only complaint is the quality of the recording. The sound has a slightly hollow quality to it that I found a little distracting during the softer passages. It's not enough of a flaw for me to discouage anyone from getting this album -- just enough to make it a four and a half-star instead of a five-star review.

Florent Schmitt: Sonata libre 
Quatre Piéces, Op. 25; Scherzo vif, Op. 59, No. 2; Chant du soir, Op. 7; Habeyssé, Op. 110; Sonate libre en deux parties enchaînées, ad modem Clementis aquæ...Op. 68 
Beata Halsk, violin; Claudio Chaiquin, piano 
Naxos 8.573169

Les Grandes Eaux Musicales de Versailles

The liner notes for this release read "Alpha invites you to prolong the pleasure of your visit to Versailles with this recording of the music you heard in the gardens."  I'm sure it's offered in the gift shop at Versailles (and obviously several other places as well -- like Amazon).

"Les Grandes Eaux Musicales de Versailles" may be the soundtrack to the water garden tour, but that's not where this music was originally heard. The compilation features Marc-Antoine Charpentier's "Te Deum" (originally heard in the royal chapel), as well as several dramatic works that would have first been performed in the Royal Opera House at Versailles -- not in the gardens.

But while the setting is a little sketchy, the authentic instrument performances on this compilation are rock-solid. The performances capture the florid elegance -- and refinement -- of Louis XIV's court. And in a way, this release can serve as a good introduction to French Baroque music.

Marc-Antoine Charpentier's "Te Deum" is an excellent example of the religious music commissioned by and performed for the King. Jean-Baptiste Lully set the standard for French opera (and incidental music for dramas).

 Jean-Marie Leclair founded the French violin school of the High Baroque, and Nicolas-Pancrace Royer was music teacher to the children of Louis XV and one of the most flamboyant harpsichord players of his day.

André Campra, a transitional composer between Lully and Rameau is represented with two selections from his opera Tancrède (another work that was most certainly performed at Versailles, but not in the water garden). And the disc fittingly concludes with excerpts from Dardanus, an opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau. Rameau brought the French baroque period to a close, and fittingly, his music closes the program.

I haven't toured the Versailles gardens, but I did enjoy the soundtrack.

Les Grandes Eaux Musicales de Versailles
Marc-Antoine Charpentier: Te Deum (Le Poème Harmonique; Vincent Dumestrea, conductor)
Jean Baptiste Lully: Piéces d'orchestra & airs (Café Zimmermann); Versailles, L'iles enchantée (Capriccio Stravante Orchestra; Skip Sempé, conductor)
Nicolas-Pancrace Royer: Pyrrhus (Les Enfants d'Apollon, Michael Greenberg, conductor)
Jean-Marie Leclair: Sylla & Glaucus (Les Nouveaux Caractéres; Sèbastien d'Hèrin, conductor) 
André Campra: Tancrède (Orchestre Les Temps Présents et les Chantres du Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, Olivier Schneebeli, director
Jean-Philipe Rameau: Dardanus (Pygmalion, Raphaël Pichon, director)
 Alpha-Classics 959

Dick Tracy and Superman

I'm sure writing a daily adventure strip can be stressful -- pressing deadlines, restrictive format, etc. But I think it has to be fun, too. Take a look at the April 7, 2015 sequence in Dick Tracy, for example. Joe Staton and Mike Curtis were kicking off a new adventure involving a train robbery. (click on image to enlarge)

That throw away line in the first panel is indeed relevant. It refers to the classic 1942 Superman cartoon by Max Fleischer. It was one of 17 Superman cartoons that Max Fleischer produced for Paramount Pictures for theatrical release. The series was beautifully animated, and is considered a classic of the genre -- much the same way Dick Tracy is regarded in the realm of sequential art.



Although not strictly necessary to Dick Tracy's story arc, the Billion Dollar Limited reference was much appreciated by fans such as myself.

Diabelli Project 101 - Piano Piece

The Diabelli Project is about offering my weekly flash-composition sketches freely to all. Like Antonio Diabelli's theme these sketches aren't great music. But perhaps (as in Diabelli's case) there's a Beethoven out there who can do great things with them.

It's doesn't take long to create a Diabelli Project flash composition -- the rule is ten minutes max from the moment the pen (or pencil) touches paper. When time's up, that's it. It does, though, take a little longer to make a fair copy of the sketch (and decipher my hasty scribbles). So when I wrote the 100th sketch, I had no idea how many I'd actually done -- it just got added to the pile for copying. 100 would have been a nice place to end the series, but that's not where I stopped.

This week's sketch is another short piano piece. (click on image to enlarge)

Going forward, I'll be experimenting with longer writing times. Is it really a flash composition if I take 20 minutes instead of 10? I don't know -- but I'm curious to see what comes of it. 

As always, this sketch is available to any and all who'd like to use it. Just share the results.