Focus on Focus: European (Rap)sody

Showing posts with label European (Rap)sody. Show all posts

20130305

Track by track 123 European Rap(sody)

Archive number: 123

Title: European Rap(sody)

Main Album: Focus 9 (New Skin)

Track number: 11

Genre: Progressive Rock Instrumental

Studio: Fieldwork Studios, Schoten, Belgium

Length: 10:19

Composer: Thijs van Leer, Gordon Taylor

Musicians: Thijs van Leer – Piano, voice, handclaps, synthesiser, organ, flute; Niels van der Steenhoven – Guitars; Bobby Jacobs – Bass; Pierre van der Linden – Drums

Producer: Bobby Jacobs and Thijs van Leer

Engineer: Han Nuijten

Label: Red Bullet

Date of recording/release: Summer 2006

Alternative version: None (although there is a clip of a Focus jam in Kasteel Groeneveld on Youtube where they play something similar to one of the sections)

Notes: This song is in several parts. First comes a slow, even halting part led by the guitar backed by piano and keyboard set to choral (00:00-00:42). It leads into a second slow part, backed by the organ (00:43-01:07). We then turn east for an increasingly fast, Russian style dance tune led by the flute with the guitar and backed by the rhythm section (01:08-02:10). This is further developed from 02:11 with the use of the voice and handclaps, the guitar giving balalaika-type riffs. At 02:37 a shout or laugh takes us back to the flute-led tune, this being brought to an end by a couple of piano arpeggios (02:38-02:59). The slow and introspective guitar then leads off again followed by the cymbals, organ, bass and then piano too (03:00-03:34). This segues into the next part, still slow, led first by piano then with guitar and backing from the rhythm section and organ (03:35-05:20).

A crash of cymbals abruptly announces a new and jaunty fast section, which features a first litany of about 12 titles of previous Focus tracks from van Leer (05:21-06:27). The list with the few additional words is as follows:

Spoke the Lord Creator, Can't believe my eyes, Out of Vesuvius, Red sky at night, Round goes the gossip, (of) Eruption, Well done, Dayglow (to break), (Creating) Moving Waves (for how long?), Answers, questions ..., (of) Love remembered, … Questions, Answers, Ship of memories, ??? (06:28-06:13)

This is followed by an instrumental section in the same vein (06:14-06:28)

At 06:29 we come into a new section that begins slowly then becomes jaunty again but this time we are looking west and the style is very French, the keyboards in a very accordion-like mode. At 07:33 this comes to an end with the same slow piano, cymbals and bass conclusion as before, ending at 07:47.

A crash of cymbals announces the second part of the litany. This time we have around 35 further tracks

Carnival Fugue, (on an) Endless Road, (it's an) Early birth, (like a fugue of the) Sneezing Bull, Hocus Pocus (and) Birth (and Birth, and Birth), No Hang ups, (with the) Russian Roulette, (surely) Harem Scarem (dreams, dream), (and a) Cathedrale de Strasbourg, Anonymus (it seems), Maximum, (or) Medium, (or) One for the Road (but) Someone's Crying … what? (in the) House of the King, (it's a) Happy nightmare, Altogether … Oh that!, (Let's) Focus (on) Who's calling?, (Is it) Beethoven's Revenge, (or may be) Father Bach, (is it) Tommy, Benny, Eddy (or) Judy or Sylvia, My Sweetheart (My Sweetheart), It's an Indian Summer, (I'm the) Glider, The Tango, (with) Tokyo Rose, Night flight (with a) Black Beauty, (such a) Tropic Bird, (With movement, with movement, with movement; that's the Lord, that's the Lord, that's the Lord) (07:48-09:15)

We then play out with the band led by van Leer's rocking flute (09:16-10:10). The closing nine seconds are left to the solo flute.

20090224

Van Leer: the humorous element

One thing that attracted me to Focus’s music as a teenager in the 1970s was its seriousness. Raised on pop music I was tiring of its superficial predictability. Then along came Focus with something quite different. The irony is that if the novelty piece Hocus Pocus had not become an international hit, I may never have discovered Van Leer (and Akkerman's) music. Somewhat unique in being the only yodelling track to consistently feature on albums that showcase the world’s greatest guitarists, it manages somehow, with its claps, shouts, whistles, yodels and blistering guitar riffs both to amuse and amaze. Perhaps the live version on Focus at the Rainbow is the most fun. (On the 1973 American tour, one night poor old Van Leer sang ‘And on the drums Pierre van der Linden’ only to find Colin Allen there – a reminder that not all humour is intentional!)
On Focus Con Proby the question is asked When does a smile begin? There is certainly a vein of humour, especially in Akkerman's work but also in Van Leer's that surfaces at various points. It is certainly in the Focus output and perhaps the search for novelty did dog them. Singles Harem Scarem and Mother Focus tried to capitalise on Van Leer’s distinctive vocals but nothing is quite as much fun or as satisfying as yodelling! An earlier version of Mother Focus is preserved on Ship of Memories, of course, in the weirder, possibly more satisfying, guise of Glider.
Round goes the gossip (the opener on Focus 3) is a track of subtle humour, weirdly enunciated Latin amid a jazz set overlaid with eventually manic voices repeating the title. Both Carnival Fugue and Elspeth of Nottingham (with its cow mooing at the end) are not without humour either. At the end of the second side of what was originally a double album one can appropriately hear weird and manic laughing in the distance. Eruption (Moving Waves) with its call and answer, piano forte style and monastic choir is another track with witty moments. However, in the musical gag department perhaps Hamburger Concerto (Rare, Medium and Well done!), whose very title is a rather old joke, is the most eccentric. It features Van Leer alternately singing male and female opera parts along with an old Dutch hymn sung in a perfectly composed manner amid classical piano and timpani, electric jazz and rock.
Van Leer's solo output and later Focus work is not marked to any great extent by this same sort of humorous approach though it does surface on rare occasions. For example – Super Fishel and Bahama Mama on Nice to have met you with its rather humorous cover (compare the more risque joke on the best of collection Collage) and perhaps I hate myself (for loving you) on the album of that name and Shock treatment on the same album plus Hurkey Turkey Parts 1 and 2 and the rather weird Flower shower (Focus 8 bonus track) - what on earth is going on there? - and possibly European (Rap)sody. Other fun tracks include Finale (Glorious album), the Rondo pieces and several others. Often when doing scat (as on Etudes sans Genes) Van Leer can be very humorous. The name 147 bars (Etudes sans Genes) is a rare example of a humorous enough title. Van Leer, unlike Akkerman, tends not to go in for such things. An example from Focus days would be using the title Anonymus on the first album or the later Mother Focus (no comment) which also includes the closing track Father Bach.

Writing about humour is seldom funny, but like other elements pinpointed in previous articles, humour is an important element in Van Leer's music to some extent and a further part of what makes his body of work the phenomenon it is.