This article needs additional citations for verification .(June 2009) |
Mirror Man | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
File:Mirror Man (David Thomas album).jpg | ||||
Studio album by David Thomas and the Pale Orchestra | ||||
Released | June 1999 | |||
Genre | Rock | |||
Label | Thirsty Ear | |||
Producer | David Thomas | |||
David Thomas and the Pale Orchestra chronology | ||||
|
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
Allmusic | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Q | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Mirror Man is the title of a "rogue opera" conceived and orchestrated by David Thomas, as well as an album recording of the first act of that piece. The piece draws many lyrical and imagistic threads from Thomas' entire recorded legacy, as well as relying to a large degree on improvisation and the personalities of its participants. The cast is typically large and diverse, featuring actors, poets and singers supported by a core musical group (based around Thomas' regular collaborators the Two Pale Boys). Set in an abstract highway landscape among anonymous all-night coffee shops, bus stops, roadside detritus, apocryphal road signs, and flickering streetlights, Mirror Man is (according to Thomas) "about places that don't exist and a collection of stories about the people who live there -- abandoned by the future, forbidden access to the past, and set adrift in a mirage-like Now".
The work was initially commissioned by The South Bank, London, and premiered at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on April 3, 1998 as part of the four-day festival David Thomas: Disastodrome!. Since that time it has been restaged at various festivals, and briefly toured the UK in 2001. The most recent staging was at a second Disastodrome! Festival in Los Angeles, in February 2003. Act 1 is entitled "Jack and the General", referring respectively to Jack Kerouac, and General Dwight D. Eisenhower, and supposes a poetic correlation of the two men via their relationship to the US Interstate Highway System. Act 2 is "Surf's Up in Bay City". Bay City is "where the journey ends, where the unstoppable Great Westward Urge meets the immovable Pacific Object and loses."
Mirror Man is performed in two acts. The album was recorded primarily live at the debut performance (with some fixes and alternate performances patched in), and comprises the first act ("Jack and the General"). The second act ("Surf's Up in Bay City"), which has undergone significant rewrites as the piece has evolved through different stagings, has not been released, though the lyrical and musical content of the most recent incarnation overlaps significantly with both the David Thomas and Two Pale Boys album Surf's Up! , and the David Thomas and Foreigners album Bay City . Due to the fluid and continuous nature of the performance, the album is tracked in a non-traditional manner. There are eleven track points spread across the fifteen distinct songs performed, each roughly, though not exactly, corresponding to the major transition points within the work.
Version 1: (as appears on the album) Disastodrome, Queen Elizabeth Hall April 3, 1998
Version 3.5: Disastodrome, UCLA - February 24, 2003
Blood, Sweat & Tears is an American jazz rock music group founded in New York City in 1967, noted for a combination of brass with rock instrumentation. BS&T has gone through numerous iterations with varying personnel and has encompassed a wide range of musical styles. Their sound has merged rock, pop and R&B/soul music with big band jazz.
David Lynn Thomas is an American singer, songwriter and musician based in Great Britain.
Pere Ubu is an American rock group formed in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1975. The band had a variety of long-term and recurring band members, with singer David Thomas being the only member staying throughout the band's lifetime. They released their debut album The Modern Dance in 1978 and followed with several more LPs before disbanding in 1982. Thomas reformed the group in 1987, continuing to record and tour.
Unforgettable... with Love, also known as simply Unforgettable, is the thirteenth studio album by American singer Natalie Cole. Released on June 11, 1991, the album includes covers of standards previously performed by her father, Nat King Cole. It was also her debut for Elektra Records, after being given her release from EMI Records.
New Concepts of Artistry in Rhythm is an album by Stan Kenton. "Invention for Guitar and Trumpet" features guitarist Sal Salvador. A New York Times writer commented in 2003 that composer Bill Russo's "Improvisation" piece was "among the highest achievements in orchestral jazz".
Home Service is a British folk rock group, formed in late 1980 from a nucleus of musicians who had been playing in Ashley Hutchings' Albion Band. Their career is generally agreed to have peaked with the album Alright Jack, and has had an influence on later work. John Tams and several other members of the band, have had solo careers and worked in other projects. In 2016 John Kirkpatrick replaced Tams as main singer in Home Service, and features as such on their next album.
Jukebox Ella: The Complete Verve Singles, Vol. 1 is a 2003 compilation album by the American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald. The album contains all the singles Fitzgerald recorded for Verve Records label between 1956 and 1965.
Why I Hate Women is the 13th studio album by Pere Ubu, released in 2006. Keith Moliné stepped in for departed longtime guitarist Tom Herman, making this the first Pere Ubu studio album not to feature any of the group's founders either as members or as guests. Explaining the title, Thomas claimed that Why I Hate Women is a tribute to an imaginary book that Jim Thompson could have written.
Erewhon is David Thomas and Two Pale Boys' debut album, as well as Thomas' first record outside the Pere Ubu banner since that group's reformation in 1987. The Two Pale Boys are a duo consisting of Keith Moliné on guitar and Andy Diagram on trumpet and other instruments.
Surf's Up is the second album by David Thomas and Two Pale Boys, released in 2001. The album is named after the Beach Boys' track, which the band covers.
18 Monkeys on a Dead Man's Chest is an album by David Thomas and Two Pale Boys, released in March 2004.
I Told You So is a 1976 album recorded at RCA studios, New York City on January 12, 13 and 14 1976 and released in 1976, featuring Count Basie and his orchestra. All the titles were arranged by Bill Holman. Sound engineer was Bob Simpson and the tape editor was Ben Jordan. The producer was Norman Granz.
Meadville is an album of live recordings, sold only on concerts. The Two Pale Boys are Keith Moliné on midi-guitar and Andy Diagram on "trumpet through electronics".
The Numbers Band are an American blues rock and experimental rock band formed in Kent, Ohio, United States in 1969. They are part of the "Akron Sound" that sprang forth from their home state.
Buddy & Soul is a 1969 live album by the Buddy Rich Big Band, recorded at the Whisky a Go Go club in West Hollywood, California.
Big Band Specials is a 1962 album by June Christy, with tracks arranged by Bill Holman, Shorty Rogers and husband Bob Cooper.
Gil Fuller & the Monterey Jazz Festival Orchestra featuring Dizzy Gillespie is an album by composer, arranger and conductor Gil Fuller featuring trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie recorded in 1965 and originally released on the Pacific Jazz label. The album was rereleased on CD combined with Fuller's Night Flight on the Blue Note label as Gil Fuller & the Monterey Jazz Festival Orchestra featuring Dizzy Gillespie & James Moody in 2008.
Food is an experimental jazz band initiated by British woodwind multi-instrumentalist Iain Ballamy and Norwegian percussionist Thomas Strønen after a coincidental meeting first in Trondheim, Norway and later in Molde in 1997. They played two gigs at Moldejazz 1998, which were recorded live to two-track, and became their first album Food (2000).
Snowfall on the Sahara is a studio album by American singer Natalie Cole. It was released by Elektra Records on June 22, 1999 in the United States.
The Kenton Era is a compilation album by pianist and bandleader Stan Kenton featuring recordings from 1940 to 1954 which was originally released in two limited edition box sets, as fifteen 7 inch 45 rpm discs and four 12 inch LPs, on Capitol in 1955.