BJ Cole

I fantasize that, someday, I will have the time and energy to write a history book. It will be about the shift that happened as the 19th century gave way to the 20th century and the age of certainty plunged into the age of chaos, in which we now find ourselves comfortably ensconced. The careful rationality that marked life and the pursuit of knowledge and the creative arts got blown apart in all fields, starting, as these things often start, with the artists. The Impressionists, whose work seems quaint to us now, were revolutionaries, storming the gates of representation with their radically new way of seeing things. It is difficult to imagine the hostility that was directed at this movement from today’s perspective, just as it is difficult to imagine the bloodthirsty chaos and rioting that occurred during the notorious premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Both marked a radical change in methods, a creation of a universeunimaginable by the old rules and methods. The artistic revolutions predated the scientific ones, but Einstein and Gödel did precisely the same thing to their establishments, throwing out all the carefully constructed rules and order and turning everything upside down. It’ll be a great book, following the path of chaos and uncertainty as it rips through the carefully composed and intellectually fortified Age of Reason and tosses us into a swirling, shifting, shattered universe in which anything is possible.

If you’re going to follow the musical thread back to its initial unravelling, you could make a strong case that the first person to begin really pulling apart the tapestry of classical music was Claude Debussy. Bored and frustrated with the straitjacket of classical musical forms and harmonic theory, Debussy jettisoned hundreds of years of musical scholarship and started anew. Saying famously that the age of airplanes needs its own music, he set about creating that music. More concerned with tonal colors and the ineffable “feeling” of music than the strict and intellectual reliance on tried and accepted forms, Debussy created a new musical vocabulary and really started 20th century music off on its course. Listening to his music, especially in the context of the classical music that came before it, one gets the overwhelming sensation that he’s just making it all up as he goes along. It is a paradoxical challenge – with no rules, anything is possible, and that enormous potential can be petrifying. At least with an established structure, you have something to start with, and a set of rules that tell you what you can and can’t get away with. It may seem easier to play tennis without a net, but it’s really much harder keeping score. The stultifying 12-tone system of composition which took over academia and made “serious” music unlistenable was, I believe, a reaction to that terrifying freedom. There the rules of composition are tighter than they ever were in the centuries before and, not surprisingly, the strict reliance on those suffocating rules makes music that has virtually no emotional appeal to it (which, it may be argued, is the point). But not everybody was frightened by looking into the void. Many rejoiced, and happily jumped into the chaotic darkness. Without Debussy, there would be no jazz. And without jazz, 20th century life as we know it would be impossible. Old man Debussy built an airplane out of music and flew it straight into the sun, and the resulting supernova lit up the entire 20th century.

BJ Cole is a virtuoso pedal steel guitar player who, dissatisfied with the repertoire usually associated with the instrument (i.e., country music and Hawaiian music), branched out on this unusual solo album to transcribe a number of classical pieces, including this track, Debussy’s best-known work.

Now, it’s true that I was ragging on the California Guitar Trio for their inappropriate transcriptions of classical music, but the key word here is “inappropriate”. There’s nothing wrong with taking what was originally a piano piece, and a very impressionistic one at that, and reworking it into a dreamy pedal steel showcase. Just like there’s nothing wrong with the California Guitar Trio transcribing an intricate Bach prelude for three guitars.

BJ Cole chooses very appropriate material to rework – a lot of it from the Impressionist songbook. His smooth, sliding tones and rich synthesizer beds compliment and enhance the ethereal nature of these pieces. He has a few originals thrown in, but the album is all of a piece. The music soothes and caresses and the whole album floats by like clouds reflected in a still pond in which your rowboat is gently drifting. Life is but a dream.