My quest for more New Age music had me scouring the racks at Musicland week after week. I simply could not get enough of it. I feel very fortunate to have been able to random chance my way into some really good CD’s.
Without the benefit of the internet or any friends that were on a similar journey, it really was just luck of the draw. Luckily for me, as the 1980’s gave way to the 1990’s I picked up this album. Licht – Flying Clouds is one of 10 volumes in a series called Musik Zur Ruhe or Music For Meditation.
I know now that this is basically a repackaging of excerpts from Jean Michel Jarre’s Oxygene & Equinoxe compositions. Back then, it was just this really cool blend of electronic music, space age sounds and a celestial backdrop of ambience.
Was my obsession with Ilhan Mimaroglu’s Agony what laid the groundwork for my love of New Age? Licht was kind of like a mix of Deep Breakfast, Agony and Switched-On Bach. I was heavily into painting at the time and I would cycle this album over and over again as I painted.
Licht was also the entry point of a Quest that I’ve been on for nearly 25 years. The Quest to acquire all 10 volumes of the series. It is a lot harder that you would expect even with the benefit of the internet. Up until just last year, I only owned two of the 10. It is an out of print and hard to find collection. I’ve been able to get my hands on 6 so far. The art work on the covers is a 10 piece puzzle.
Oxygene – The version depicted is not the exact same as presented on Licht but I couldn’t find all the parts together in any other way. Get your 3-D glasses!
EquinoxeThe version depicted is not the exact same as presented on Licht but I couldn’t find all the parts together in any other way
I bought The Voyage Beyond at Musicland on the same day that I bought New Age Music and like New Age Music, it is a compilation of new age songs from a variety of artists. It is a good album but not as dear to me as New Age Music. It does serve to illustrate the wide variety of musical styles within the New Age genre.
Some gems stand out like Light On The Path which is probably my favorite track here. Unlike most of my New Age favorites, Light On The Path features a rtraditional acoustic guitar and flute in place of synthesizers and electric guitars. The electronics are still present in a supporting role and the result is a soft rolling journey.
Listening to The Voyage Beyond, I notice that in most of the songs the synthesizers take a back seat and tradtional pianos often take center stage. Perhaps that is the main reason why I like New Age Music more. It really satisfies my electronic music appetite. The Voyage Beyond is good New Age stuff and still in the top 10 of my New Age albums.
Christian Buehner – The Chariot
Christaal -Light On The Path
This was frustrating because I could only find 2 out of the 12 songs on this Compact Disc. I have been expecting this to happen but the success of the previous post had given me a little hope.
I have no idea when the term New Age Music was actually invented. I had been actively looking at records in stores since The KISS Age back in the 1970’s. I didn’t remember seeing that little section tucked away between Classical or World and the Comedy albums before. Of course I wasn’t looking for it. Maybe that is a good example of how My Musical Evolution has changed my behavior. Today I’m more likely to look at everything in the store, my mind wide open to what may be there. Before, I was willing to look at everything in those particular sections that I felt interested me.
Even so, the New Age section didn’t exist at Wooden Nickel and was reall quite small at Musicland. Which raises that question in my mind. When did New Age Music become a thing? Keep in mind that we are still years away from the first time that we’d hear that crazy dial-up modem connecting to the World Wide Web. In those early years of the 1990’s there really wasn’t a good way to find out about music that didn’t qualify as mainstream. I had to just keep going back to Musicland and scouring that tiny New Age section. I knew that I like Ray Lynch but I already had both of his albums. I had to start gambling. It was a lot harder to do back then. Compact Disc prices were still comparitively high, coming in around $16 each or more.
Fortunately, I rolled the dice on a couple of compilation discs and scored some absolute winners. This album New Age Music features 10 tracks from great New Age artists. As I sit and listen to these pieces, I find it unbelievable that there was once a time where their names meant nothing to me.New Age Music is bar far the most played Compact Disc I have every owned. I really hope that I can find good samples to share with you because this is an amazing New Age album. Sadly, I’m not certain that you can buy this anywhere anymore. One of the tragedies of New Age music is that it doesn’t have as wide of an audience as The Ramones so production runs are typically smaller especially for the more obscure stuff. I just spent about 10 minutes on Amazon.com trying to find this album using all kinds of keyword searches but could not. If you see it anywhere, buy it!
As I would discover along the way, there are many styles of music within the New Age genre. Some of it is more ambient and is marked by long tracks of trance like sounds. Some of it is more acoustic and usually features traditional instruments from the far east and beyond. My favorite is the more melodic and electronic like Ray Lynch’s Deep Breakfast. New Age Music is just that, a collection of synthesized pieces that are perfect for drowning out the din of the world while I read, paint or do mental labor. The notes stimulate just the right parts of my brain.
Now for the challenging part, which selections will I be able to find and share here.
Klaus Schulze – Floating
Software – Add Space To Time My favorite note in this song comes at 3:01. Is that “drop” a precursor to my upcoming Dubstep phase?
Baffo Banfi – Quelle Dolce
Tangerine Dream –Cloudburst Flight
Peak – Nightmist
Jean Michel Jarre – Souveniers Of China
Ashra – Midnight On Mars
Robert Schroeder – Quick Shot
Well we did a lot better than I thought. I was able to find all but a couple. I think it is interesting that as I move away from mainstream music into this New Age territory, the videos available are increasingly homegrown. That is, they are often created by average folks like you and I and typically pair the music with sweeping landscape slideshows.I must confess that I’ve done the same samething for years. I’ve taken our scenic snapshots from Vermont or Michigan and added some of this great music to them. New Age just seems to go hand in hand with the beauty of the natural earth and inspires me to appreciate it.
When Mary and I moved into our house on Cortland, like every other time I’ve moved, my first priority was getting the stereo set up so we would have music to move in to and soothe our savage souls. So I did that but this time I decided not to connect the turntable. I only had about 40 or 50 vinyl albums left anyway. I would discard them as I bought their replacements on Compact Disc.
So the last time I had a turntable hooked up to anything was Dec 2nd, 1988. I would eventually give my turntable and remaining albums to a friend of mine named John Hunter. Now it was truly a New Age in terms of technology as well as with music and matrimony.
Feverish for more New Age music, I set my sights on Ray Lynch’s only other album at the time, 1983’s The Sky Of Mind. This one was good but not quite as refined and polished as Deep Breakfast. It featured more standard acoustic instruments in place of the electronic stuff. It was slower and more Zen, if there is such a thing. It was softer, slower and more soulful. If you can just sit in a recliner, clear your mind and listen to this album with your eyes closed or looking at some softly falling, rain, leaves or snow, you might experience true inner piece.
Quandra
Pavane
The Temple I recall watching a thunderstorm roll in while I was listening to this song under heavy green clouds.
I can tell you precisely when I first heard Deep Breakfast by Ray Lynch. It was in the wee hours of the night/morning after my wedding. Remember Keith? The guy that got me interested in U2? The guy that I camped out for U2 Tickets with. The guy who asked me who I was taking to the concert. The guy I told “The woman who will change my life.” That same guy gave me Ray Lynch’s Deep Breakfast as a wedding gift.
After our reception, the entire wedding party went to the midnight movies at Glenbrook Cinema (which is no longer there). After the movie, we were wiped out. I turned on the fibre optic flower music box that was also a wedding gift and played Deep Breakfast. And by the flickering colored lights I listened to the soothing sounds of Ray Lynch and my new bride crying about how she could never go home again.
While I thought Deep Breakfast was nice to listen to that night. It wasn’t until a few days later in our new home that I really listened to it and became fully aware of this genre of music known as New Age. Yes, Tubular Bells is often classified as New Age but there were no labels designating it as such when I bought it. It seemed as though New Age just popped up all of a sudden and I was crazy about it. New Age took my love of instrumental music and mixed it in with my love of electronic music. Often times good guitar parts were mixed in as well.
Even though Tubular Bells was technically my first New Age CD, I believe that Ray Lynch marks the start of my New Age journey. It was Ray Lynch that introduced me to the label New Age. Wooden Nickel didn’t have a New Age section at that time so I spent a lot of money at Musicland which had a small but growing New Age area.
I can’t stress how significant this move to New Age is to My Musical Evolution. Since late 1988, almost a quarter of a century, New Age has been the most played genre of my Eclectic Collection. In my office most days, I listen to New Age all day long. It has that mind focusing power to mask out the sounds of the office and not distract me with lyrics or air drum solos. Any time that I have thinking to do New Age helps. On long drives New Age inspires me to recognize the natural beauty around me. If you are curious about New Age music, I highly recommend starting here with Ray Lynch and Deep Breakfast.
I spent the bulk of October and November preparing for our wedding and buying our first home. Buying a house at 23 was tough. We couldn’t afford much and I seemed to be driving to the mortgage company everyday with another piece of paper that they requested.
Musically, I had replaced about 70% of my old records and favorite cassettes from the old days. It was an expensive proposition but it was cool to check out some of that music again. It was kind of like a miniature version of what I’ve been doing here all year.
Apart from that, I was still mostly listening to my classical stuff and other instrumental pieces that I had accumulated. There are a couple of pieces to the Dirty Dancing story. The first goes back a ways when Mary and I first began dating for real. We were supposed to go see Dirty Dancing in the theater on a Friday night but I got detained at work for a really long time. Mary thought I stood her up and she was disappointed. Finally I was able to get a free minute to call and explain and apologize for not being able to go that night.
I don’t remember when I did actually see Dirty Dancing but it was quite a while after that, maybe even when it was on TV. The music, though was something that we enjoyed together from the beginning. We selected (I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life to be our wedding song. Mary has ever since been the one thing I can’t get enough of. You should have seen our wedding reception when Mary and I did the big lift maneuver. It looked really stunning with her wedding dress floating behind her.
While Mary and I were walking down the aisle, the people that we bought our first house from were moving out. Really, that house on Cortland was only empty for a few hours before we started moving in on the morning after our wedding. My mother and sisters had decorated my room at mom’s house in our wedding colors. Blue and silver ribbons twirled from the ceiling. It was a nice surprise. It was late, we were exhausted and we had to get up early to start moving.
On a strange related coincidence note, when her twin sister got married a few years later, her wedding song was Unchained Melody. Do you see it? Both songs were from Patrick Swayze movies that were popular at the time. Both were sung by a member of The Righteous Brothers.
Many of the songs here were period pieces. I thought that was cool. Mom had a fair amount of At The Hop type stuff and I liked as a kid and still do. I have a few in my Eclectic Collection but I’ve often considered expanding my 50’s music.
(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life Yes, Mary and I did this same dance at our wedding reception.
Oh Good Grief! left me hungry for more. Fortunately, Musicland was able to help me out. Although I was disappointed (still am) that all of the music from It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown is not available, I still appreciate what I have. These little themes and associated variations are still very nice to listen to and always evoke that emotional connection to a simpler, Charlie Brown time.
Of these three, Oh Good Grief! is still my favorite. Maybe that is because of The Great Pumpkin Waltz.A Boy Named Charlie Brown has alternate versions of two tracks from Oh Good Grief! even so, they are different enough that it is worth having them. As I sit here and listen to these songs, it occurs to me that Charlie Brown and all the Peanuts characters seemed find that balance between grown up sophistication and childhood innocence. Maybe that is the attraction. Maybe I just wish I could find that balance too. Maybe happiness really is a warm puppy.
If you have been following along since the beginning, you’ll recall that one of my first favorite songs as a toddler was The Ventures Hawaii 5-0. Roughly ten years later, I found a box of 8-Track tapes on the side of a dirt road in Vermont while I was out running. One of those 8-Tracks was The Ventures, Walk Don’t Run.
I have had a long history of liking the twangy guitar style ofThe Ventures. My move in to management at work meant more time on reporting ad paperwork. I had virtually left most of the music I has collected on the shelf in favor of more instrumental stuff. I had amassed a decent pile of Classical Compact Discs and as you’ve seen in recent posts, artists like Mike Oldfield and Vince Guaraldi were taking center stage.
While The Ventures still qualified as pop music, the instrumental nature of their music made them an acceptable substitute for Western Tracks or Mozart. It seems that lyrics really distract me when I’m trying to focus on something. I have no problem with words when the labor is manual. I built the deck bridge to my garage while listening to Car Talk. It is only when I’m doing some mental activity that lyrics seem to clash with the voices in my head.
In 1988, my music buying had reduced to a trickle. I was saving for a house and wedding and I really wasn’t spending much time listening to music anyway. Sad, I agree. When I did buy something, more often than not, it was classical music or stuff from The Scratchy 45 Days.
I’m quite certain that I stumbled on this Compact Disc by accident. It had been years since I owned an 8-Track player andThe Ventureshad fallen into the cracks, unplayed and all but forgotten. It really was cool to listen to them again. This wasn’t the same album but it had many of the same tracks. Tracks that I had listen to so many times that my mind would anticipate the click to the next program on the 8-Track player.
There is something wonderfully Forrest Gump aboutThe Ventures. I’m sure I mentioned something about this back when I discovered the 8-Track. I get this nostalgic image of an early 60’s California coast. In this romanticized version, everything is clean-cut and tidy. Cars with ridiculous fins roll up and down the coastal highway with the tops down.
Apache ’65
Ram-Bunk-Shush
Telstar
Cruel Sea – That doo-doo-doo song fromThe Scratchy 45 Days
Perfidia
Rebel Rouser
Walk, Don’t Run
Penetration
You it just occurred to me that I don’t know anything about the men behind The Ventures they are kind of like The Blue Man Group to me. Just a bunch of nameless guys. Why is that?
Here I face a dilemma. I already mentioned that this holding pattern phase of My Musical Evolution doesn’t even have an official title like all those that precede it. Even more concerning is that at this point in My Muscial Evolution I really depart from the mainstream and begin my exploration of the obscure. This is a problem for this project because it is increasingly difficult to provide samples to the music. As evidenced by the last post. It was not possible to find links to actual Vince Guaraldi recordings. I had to resort to proxies. I can only assume that as we move forward from here, a large portion of My Musical Evolutionwill simply not be available for me to sample for you. This is tragic because much of this really cool stuff is music that you most likely have never heard before and I so desperately want to share it with you. We’ll see what happens.
I bought this Compact Disc because I wanted that iconic theme from The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. It was for a long forgotten project. According to the track listings, this album not only had that song but several others that were of interest. When I got it home and played it, what I found was that these were not the original recordings but a collection of studio versions done in a sort of Elevator Music style. Really, it reminds me of the early days of FM radio in my dad’s giant Oldsmobile. It seemed like FM was Easy Listening only. The name Boots Randolph comes to mind. Dad had a few Boots Randolph 8-Tracks in that car.
While it wasn’t what I needed for my project, it turned out to be a good album to listen to. The almost Disco version of The Good, The Bad & The Ugly is dancible. How funny is that? I hope I can find it on YouTube. You need to hear it.
High Noon As anticipated, it is going to be impossible to share these versions of these songs. I am forced to approximate.
Wand’rin Star
Rio Bravo This one sounds very much like the one from my CD. It will give you a glimpse into the overall style of this album.
The Good, The Bad & The Ugly The is the actual movie version. I guess you need to buy the album to get the disco version. Disappointment.
Hang ‘Em High
The Magnificent Seven
For A Few Dollars More
I’m really disappointed that I had to substitute all of these tracks. While one or two might have come close, it is cause for concern on the completion of this project. I may have to figure something else out. It would appear that YouTube will not be a viable resource going forward.
In May of 1988, I felt that I had to move out of Stately Roach Manor. I had to save money for my upcoming wedding and I really wasn’t doing anything at the house but sleeping for a few hours at night. It was time to move on. I have to take a moment to thank Aric for being the absolute best room mate I could have had. For two and a half years we had a harmonious blast of hollywood film proportions.
My Musical Evolution was still rather dormant as I moved back into my childhood home on Lincoln Court. Living with mom was different this time. I wasn’t doing anything that she would disapprove of and the grindstone was keeping my nose busy. A side effect is that I don’t have a clear era attached to this period of my life. Roach Days Revisited had come to an end and I’m just sort of floating here, waiting for the next phase to happen.
In September of 1988, I began to purchase some music again. Not in the volumes I had in the previous years, just a few notable things. I may have mentioned that I had always been a fan of Charlie Brown music. Ever since I first saw It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown back in the 1960’s , I’ve been drawn to the music. Back in The Academy Days, I used to ask a musician friend named Charlie Jones to play what I now know as Linus And Lucy on the piano in the audtiorium in Fuller Hall.
As for my acquisition of this album Oh Good Grief! I have to thank my friend Albert Gomez. I must have mentioned my fondness for Charlie Brown music that fall. I can only assume that it was in anticipation of the airing of Great Pumpkin. To my surprise, he had a couple albums by The Vince Guaraldi Trio. How lucky is that? Or was it some kind of destiny? It was just a short while later that I was able to find 3 Charlie Brown albums by The Vince Guaraldi Trio at Musicland in the mall. Musicland was way more expensive than Wooden Nickel but they alwasy seemed to have the more obscure stuff that I was looking for.
Oh Good Grief! is a fantastic album and I cannot thank Albert enough for making this connection for me. You have to remember that this was still a decade before the internet was a household utility and Shazam couldn’t have run on cell phones if it had been invented and even if we had cell phones. Doesn’t that sound crazy? A life without smartphones and the internet. Where did we get information? In this case, it was old fashioned person to person networking.
It may seem unlikely but in the nearly 25 years that I’ve owned Oh Good Greif!, it would have to rank in my top 30 most played Compact Discs. Is it because I bought it in September like a-Ha’s Hunting High And Low? Similar to my favorite classical stuff and Tubular Bells, Oh Good Grief! is a smooth collection of instrumental music that I find it easy to work to. As it plays, it muffles the background sounds of life going on, helping to focus without the distraction of lyrics. I love it. It is seriously good jazz music. It might benefit from some sentimental nostalgia tied to It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and that small town 60’s feel particularly with The Great Pumpkin Waltz. The only thing I’d like better would be the full Great Pumpkin Soundtrack with the flute laced Linus And Lucy and that great music behind Snoopy’s adventures behind enemy lines in the French countryside. I’ve even written to the late Mr. Guaraldi’s representatives requesting just that. It has become a Halloween tradition in our house. I watch It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown while Mary hands out candy to Trick Or Treater’s that show up. I love the nostalgia of the program but mostly I just listen to the music. I hope they do eventually release the full soundtrack. Until then I’ll continue to thoroughly enjoy Oh Good Grief! Thanks Albert.
Linus And Lucy
You’re In Love Charlie Brown Hard to find good examples to share. This is a growing concern as My Musical Evolution progresses.
My quest for more New Age music had me scouring the racks at Musicland week after week. I simply could not get enough of it. I feel very fortunate to have been able to random chance my way into some really good CD’s.
