The Elusive Bacharach/Bop Connection

[Blair N. Cummings]

BB has always cited jazz pioneers from the bop era as major influences but until recently I had never been able to discern any real connection. His few beautiful post-bop pieces for What`s New, Pussycat? aside, the compositions seemed solely rooted in traditional pop architecture.
Then one night I found myself noting a particularly long melodic line by Charlie Parker and the light went on. Ditto for the odd (6/4) tempo I heard on Monk`s "Sixteen".
Are there any musicians (I`m not) out there who can contibute to this topic?

[An Enormous BB Fan]

I knew that Burt used to go to the jazz clubs on 52nd street and I knew that Burt loved jazz music. But I have to agree with you that Burt has also seemed more influenced in his songwriting with traditional "pop". My feeling is that Burt did try to get jazzy but it came out as pure "Bacharach" -- that is, he created his own unique style of music. The jazziest I've ever felt that Burt got was in "Freefall" in the "break". But even that section is more "Bacharach" than jazz. Of course, this is all a good thing.

[Dennis Webb]

I've also been of the opinion that Burt absorbed influences from be-bop, jazz, and elsewhere, but when he wrote his own music the influences all got transformed into his own unique musical language.

But listen to his extended orchestral arrangement of "Wives and Lovers" on one of his early records (possibly his first record). This strikes me as having a strong jazz flavor, moreso than his other works typically do. But his was a fairly early work.

Maybe we have to remember that from the beginning of Burt's musical career he was capable of writing in any style he needed to. The movie "Casino Royale" is a wonderful parody of Bond-style movies, and Burt's score is a wonderful parody of Bond movie soundtracks. Parody isn't easy to write: you have to be able to write the thing being parodied before you can write the parody. Think of the title song "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence", a western movie title song through and through, written to order, so to speak. There's the Italian wedding music in "What's New, Pussycat". as well as "My Little Red Book", a nightclub dance number that I wouldn't have associated with Burt (stylistically).

In sum, if we can't actually separate out the various genre influences in Burt's music, that's just more tribute to the genius of the man.

[Mario Serra]

Dear friends,I Just would like to remind you that the Maestro received and has benefitted from one of the Most outstanding music teachers he could ever get:Darius Milhaud, If you get a chanse to listen to Milhaud's La creation du monde; or Scaramouche:A suite for sax and orchestra you can trace some very Important roots of Burt's musical background, that incude also jazz.Obviousely ,being Burt, an American , cool jazz influenced him in compositions Wifes & Lovers or One less bell to answer and most of all the album Woman, that is personaly ,one of my favourite albums of the Maestro. that is often overlooked by many of his Fans. It's a pity that
even Burt Tends to be overlooking about it: BUt that's because he is a perfectionist .
[/b]

[Guest]

Hmmm..it's in the melody...the long and shorts the dots and dashes over the notes...syncopations of the melody....multi-colored
chord changes..and going to the unexpected places with those chords..no other "traditional" songwriters of the 50's and 60's did that....so that part
was NOT traditional...same with his meter changes....can you name a song from 1955 to 1965 with unusual meter changes?...no.
just Burt.
It also came out in his instrumentals in the ealry 70's Warren Luening on trumpet improvising on "And the People Were With Her"....Don Menza
improvising on his sax with "Wives and Lovers"...the influence is there..it's just more subtle than realized.

[Guest]

I am not at all sure those were improvisations. Actually, I doubt that very much.
Either way, those are gourgeous.

[Guest]

Hmmm..it's in the melody...the long and shorts the dots and dashes over the notes...syncopations of the melody....multi-colored
chord changes..and going to the unexpected places with those chords..no other "traditional" songwriters of the 50's and 60's did that....so that part
was NOT traditional...same with his meter changes....can you name a song from 1955 to 1965 with unusual meter changes?...no.
just Burt.
It also came out in his instrumentals in the ealry 70's Warren Luening on trumpet improvising on "And the People Were With Her"....Don Menza
improvising on his sax with "Wives and Lovers"...the influence is there..it's just more subtle than realized.

You mention Burt's meter changes. I don't believe that Burt himself composed using meter changes ON PURPOSE. By this I mean to say that Burt just wrote the songs and the meter changes were there. In other words, the meter changes were just part of how he thought and then only later did he realize that he had various meter changes. I'll tell why I think this is true. I think this is true because it was Dionne who had to tell Burt that in "Anyone Who Had A Heart" that at the end of the song the meter went into 7/8 for one bar. I got the feeling that he, himself, didn't realize this. Another thing about Burt's meter changes. On one videotape that I have, Burt was saying that the musicians were giving him a hard time about his meter changes and Burt simply told them not to worry about and that they should simply "feel it". And this is probably why I never had a problem with his meter changes. In fact, I understood them from the beginning. I never even gave it a thought. I find them to be very, very natural. That's why I'm surprised that musicians have trouble with them.

[Guest]

take my word for it..I saw the music on the stands....they were improvisations...just chords on the charts in those solo spots.