Lotus Land

Kenny and Cecil share a narcosis in this unusually sensitive Foam-O-Graph©

Steve Shark files screed from his dirigible high above Xanadu!

It must be amazing [avers Steve Shark - Ed.] to be remembered for creating a piece of music that's lasted for decades. However, I wonder what it's like if you've written lots of pieces but everyone keeps referring back to "that" one piece? I wonder if you just get sick of it?

Anyway here's the deal - two people from the world of music, together covering almost a century and a half with some considerable overlap, and both somewhat dogged by "that" one song. In this case it's two different songs, but roughly halfway through that swathe of time they met - sort of - in one stunning piece of music.

First up, jazz guitarist Kenny Burrell. Still a citizen of this planet and in his tenth decade, he's recorded over a hundred albums and played sessions on many, many more. "That" song for Kenny is a bluesy piece called Chitlins Con Carne covered by not only jazzers, such as Horace Silver and Big John Patton, but also blues guitarists like Buddy Guy and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Burrell composed it, so I hope he gets the royalities - although that's not a foregone conclusion in the music bizness.

Our other subject is Cyril Scott, who is an almost certainly less familiar name. Scott was a British classical composer, writer, furniture maker and occultist, born in 1879, and creator of some really very unusual music that sounds way ahead of its time. In his case, "that" song is a piece called Lotus Land. Written for solo piano, in 1905, it has startling clashes of notes and very elastic timing, although it's certainly not formless or particularly difficult to listen to. Smith eventually got bored being asked to perform it in his recitals and a later recording reveals him almost tossing it away. An earlier piano roll version, made by him in 1926, is far more studied and dynamic.

So, how do these two gentlemen eventually meet?

Well, in 1965, Burrell cut an album (on Verve, natch!) using both electric and classical guitar called Guitar Forms, which also had some tracks orchestrated by Gil Evans. Taking up over nine minutes of the album is Scott's Lotus Land with Burrell on nylon strung guitar and a superbly atmospheric arrangement by Evans. It builds rather like Ravel's Bolero, but it's far less uplifting and seems to portray the mythical Lotus Land as almost nightmarishly numbing to the emotions, as well as the senses. It's a truly remarkable track which is hauntingly beautiful, but also rather creepy. The rattling tambourine, chattering wood block and relentless snare drum give it a hypnotic and propulsive inevitability, even as it fades away with keening brass lines. If it didn't fade away, you just know that it'd stretch on for ever and ever...

Scott died in 1970 - five years after Burrell recorded his most famous composition. I wonder if he ever heard what Evans and Burrell had done to it? I wonder if he might have come to love it again?

Anyway, see what you think - there's a link in the comments to the whole Guitar Forms album: a good mix of classical and electric guitar in both small group and orchestral settings. And check out Scott's original piano roll version in the YouTube clip below: