https://www.reddit.com/r/Nujabes/comments/4u928r/the_story_of_feather/
Feather, from the 2005 album Modal Soul is probably most most well known track Nujabes ever produced. The words preach a resonant message of frustration with the way people so easily forget each other’s humanity -- yet the impression the song gives is not that all is lost -- instead there is an optimism that seems to be almost bursting out of every bar, an optimism that things can change.
One of the most recognizable elements of the song is the beat, which uses a six second sample as the framework for the entire song. If you look for the origin of this sample, though, you’ll find a rabbit hole that stretches back nearly two centuries and spans four continents.
We start in Munich, on June 10th 1865. German composer and essayist Richard Wagner (pronounced vahg-ner) is premiering what many consider to be his masterpiece, Tristan und Isolde. The opening chord shocked audiences, and the unresolved tensions produced a music more daring than anything previously imagined. The emotions were raw and visceral, the passion almost overbearing. An entire generation of composers would come to define themselves in alignment with or opposition to Wagner’s style.
Composers and musicians had (and still have) very strong opinions about Wagner’s musical style, but they all agree that one of his strokes of genius was the use of leitmotifs: short musical ideas that accompany characters, settings, or ideas. You probably know a few already: the Force theme from Star Wars, the Hobbit theme from the Lord of the Rings, ET’s theme, and so on. Wagner was a master at using these themes, and just as they worked well to keep people engaged during a 4 hour opera, they worked well in movies to give the music some coherence and relevance. For more on Leitmotifs, I recommend the Nerdwriter.
Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg was an admirer of Wagner, and pushed the emotional style he had created to its very limits. With the Nazi party gaining power in Germany, he moved to the United States. While there, he became a teacher for a generation of up-and-coming film composers, including Alfred Newman).
In 1953 Newman composed the music for a film called The Robe, which was about the life and death of Jesus. To give the film a more authentic feel, Newman included not just music from the German tradition of Wagner and Schoenberg, but the music that people associated with Jerusalem and the Middle East. Listen to this example of classical Persian music, and then compare it to the Love Theme that Newman Composed. You can hear how Wagner’s sense of drama mixes with the influence of the Persian music. As a bonus, you can also hear how Newman incorporates letmotifs in a track later in the film.
Despite all of this, we still do not have the source of our sample. For that, we need to turn to the Jazz scene of the 1950s. Jazz is the result of European harmonies mixing with the rhythms and melodies of black music. The origins for these melodies and rhythms spans all the way back to West Africa, but I don’t have the space to give a full history of jazz. It suffices to say that Jazz in the 1950s was a music primarily informed by the experience of black people in America.
One musician who looked to change that was a saxophonist and flautist by the name of William Emanuel Huddleston, who in 1950 converted to Islam and became Yusef Lateef. Islam was a major religion in Africa, and there was a strong view at the time that Christianity was something imposed onto black slaves in America by their masters. Politics aside, Lateef decided that he wanted to explore cultures other than the culture of Black America and incorporate it into his music. The result was the album Eastern Sounds. On this album Lateef included not only original compositions, but also covers of movie themes (a common practice for jazz musicians). Since his album was about Eastern influences, Lateef picked movies set in the Middle East to Cover. One of these movies: The Robe by Alfred Newman.
And now, finally, we have the track that would get sampled. Newman’s theme, Lateef’s cover. Forty-four years later, Nujabes came along this track and sampled it, turning it into what it is today.
phew
Feather, from the 2005 album Modal Soul is probably most most well known track Nujabes ever produced. The words preach a resonant message of frustration with the way people so easily forget each other’s humanity -- yet the impression the song gives is not that all is lost -- instead there is an optimism that seems to be almost bursting out of every bar, an optimism that things can change.
One of the most recognizable elements of the song is the beat, which uses a six second sample as the framework for the entire song. If you look for the origin of this sample, though, you’ll find a rabbit hole that stretches back nearly two centuries and spans four continents.
We start in Munich, on June 10th 1865. German composer and essayist Richard Wagner (pronounced vahg-ner) is premiering what many consider to be his masterpiece, Tristan und Isolde. The opening chord shocked audiences, and the unresolved tensions produced a music more daring than anything previously imagined. The emotions were raw and visceral, the passion almost overbearing. An entire generation of composers would come to define themselves in alignment with or opposition to Wagner’s style.
Composers and musicians had (and still have) very strong opinions about Wagner’s musical style, but they all agree that one of his strokes of genius was the use of leitmotifs: short musical ideas that accompany characters, settings, or ideas. You probably know a few already: the Force theme from Star Wars, the Hobbit theme from the Lord of the Rings, ET’s theme, and so on. Wagner was a master at using these themes, and just as they worked well to keep people engaged during a 4 hour opera, they worked well in movies to give the music some coherence and relevance. For more on Leitmotifs, I recommend the Nerdwriter.
Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg was an admirer of Wagner, and pushed the emotional style he had created to its very limits. With the Nazi party gaining power in Germany, he moved to the United States. While there, he became a teacher for a generation of up-and-coming film composers, including Alfred Newman).
In 1953 Newman composed the music for a film called The Robe, which was about the life and death of Jesus. To give the film a more authentic feel, Newman included not just music from the German tradition of Wagner and Schoenberg, but the music that people associated with Jerusalem and the Middle East. Listen to this example of classical Persian music, and then compare it to the Love Theme that Newman Composed. You can hear how Wagner’s sense of drama mixes with the influence of the Persian music. As a bonus, you can also hear how Newman incorporates letmotifs in a track later in the film.
Despite all of this, we still do not have the source of our sample. For that, we need to turn to the Jazz scene of the 1950s. Jazz is the result of European harmonies mixing with the rhythms and melodies of black music. The origins for these melodies and rhythms spans all the way back to West Africa, but I don’t have the space to give a full history of jazz. It suffices to say that Jazz in the 1950s was a music primarily informed by the experience of black people in America.
One musician who looked to change that was a saxophonist and flautist by the name of William Emanuel Huddleston, who in 1950 converted to Islam and became Yusef Lateef. Islam was a major religion in Africa, and there was a strong view at the time that Christianity was something imposed onto black slaves in America by their masters. Politics aside, Lateef decided that he wanted to explore cultures other than the culture of Black America and incorporate it into his music. The result was the album Eastern Sounds. On this album Lateef included not only original compositions, but also covers of movie themes (a common practice for jazz musicians). Since his album was about Eastern influences, Lateef picked movies set in the Middle East to Cover. One of these movies: The Robe by Alfred Newman.
And now, finally, we have the track that would get sampled. Newman’s theme, Lateef’s cover. Forty-four years later, Nujabes came along this track and sampled it, turning it into what it is today.
phew