Patterico's Pontifications

2/4/2016

Thursday Night Music: Aladdin Sane

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:23 pm



I am not generally a fan of avant-garde jazz music, but the piano solo on this piece is one of the best piano performances I have ever heard. Pianist Mike Garson described it in this interview from 2008:

How did the world-famous piano solo on ‘Aladdin Sane’ come about?

Well, I did tell Bowie about the avant-garde thing. When I was recording the famous ‘Aladdin Sane’ track for Bowie, it was just two chords, an A and a G chord, and the band was playing very simple English rock and roll. And Bowie said: “play a solo on this.” I had just met him, so I played a blues solo, and then he said: “No, that’s not what I want.” And then I played a latin solo. Again, Bowie said: “No no, that’s not what I want.” He then continued: “You told me you play that avant-garde music. Play that!”

And I said: “Are you sure? ‘Cause you might not be working anymore!” (laughter). So I did the solo that everybody knows today, in one take. And to this day, I still receive emails about it. Every day. I always tell people that Bowie is the best producer I ever met, because he lets me do my thing.

12 Responses to “Thursday Night Music: Aladdin Sane”

  1. Fantastic! Also check out “Lady Grinning Soul” — and Bowie’s cover of PInk Floyd’s “See Emily Play” on Pin-Ups.

    Patterico (86c8ed)

  2. Agreed on the piano…. Garson has… had pretty much been his go to guy for decades, with some intermittent breaks. One of Bowie’s best songs, I think. Just takes me back to my early 20s and fun college days while working 50 hours a week as well. The first time my wife – girlfriend at the time – and I saw him in Spring of ’73 was like walking from our world on to a different planet. What an impression it made. It just makes me very sad that he’s gone for good.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  3. With your taste in music I wonder about your taste in political candidates.

    Ustuplay (4dd398)

  4. Trump as a candidate is it bit avant garde, ya think. He just says whatever he wants.

    Ustuplay (4dd398)

  5. You don’t like Bowie, your taste is in yer ass.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  6. “Some of the candidates, they went in and didn’t know the air conditioner didn’t work and sweated like dogs, and they didn’t know the room was too big because they didn’t have anybody there. How are they going to beat ISIS?”

    Ustuplay (4dd398)

  7. #6 Ustuplay, we won’t need to beat ISIS because Barack promises to charm ISIS into laying down with lambs. Or sheep. I mean Barack will charm ISIS into laying down their arms.

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  8. R.I.P. Maurice White, founder and lead singer for Earth, Wind & Fire

    Icy (ae1c19)

  9. Sounds like Little Richard having a stroke.

    Seriously though, I’m sure this guy is a great piano player and props to Bowie for letting him get on with his bad self, but I’m just not open-minded enough to groove to avant-garde music.

    And if you ever try to get us to appreciate the musical stylings of Yoko Ono then I’m leaving the blog for good. (Actually her work on the Double Fantasy and Milk and Honey albums isn’t half bad.)

    JVW (d60453)

  10. This isn’t exactly new. Mark Steyn has an album of songs dedicated to cats.

    “I thought I saw a pussy cat”

    That’s a sample. It’s a guilty pleasure. I clicked because I was sure it would be terrible, but it’s freaking awesome.

    papertiger (c2d6da)

  11. I’ve enojoyed watching interviews about the creative process behind Bowie’s albums and records – his backing artists and other collaborative efforts.

    This was worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp1iutsWnho

    SarahW (67599f)

  12. 5. You don’t like Bowie, your taste is in yer ass.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 2/4/2016 @ 9:32 pm

    I freely admit this. I never appreciated Bowie’s music, and that’s undoubtedly due to some deficiency on my part.

    Steve57 (f61b03)


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.0690 secs.