gadji beri bimba glandridi laula lonni cadori

December 26, 2016 3:22 PM

From Revolutionary to Normative: A Secret History of Dada and Surrealism in American Music is an overview by composer Matthew Greenbaum of music influenced by dada and surrealism, focusing on the American context, but by no means limited to it. You can hear some dada music over at UbuWeb. If you want an overview of dada itself, Alfred Brendel wrote about The Growing Charm of Dada. [First two links via Open Culture.]
posted by Kattullus (12 comments total)

Incidentally, reading "Gadji Beri Bimba" this time around, I was struck by the fact that "laula" is "song" in Finnish. I wonder how much sense could be read into it if all the words were checked against all the languages, at least the ones that use the latin alphabet.
posted by Kattullus at 3:25 PM on December 26, 2016

One one Erik Satie's contributions to Dada was a piece that was annotated, "to be repeated 840 times." One of John Cage's (many) contributions was to actually to produce a full 18-hour performance of the work.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 4:01 PM on December 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

Does Inna Gadda Da Vida count? Although I think it's main purpose was to allow the disk jockey to take a leak and/or smoke a joint.
posted by jonmc at 4:38 PM on December 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

You cannot do a history of Dada in American music without pointing to Marie Osmond's flawless recitation of Hugo Ball's Karawane.
posted by jonp72 at 4:56 PM on December 26, 2016 [7 favorites]

One one Erik Satie's contributions to Dada was a piece that was annotated, "to be repeated 840 times." One of John Cage's (many) contributions was to actually to produce a full 18-hour performance of the work.

John Cage staged an 18-hour performance of Satie's Vexations with a relay team of pianists that included David Tudor, David del Tredici, Christian Wolff, Philip Corner, the musicologist Joshua Rifkin, and future Velvet Underground member John Cale. What's even more bizarre is that John Cale made his television debut as a "secret guest" on a 1963 broadcast of I've Got a Secret based on his participation in that concert.
posted by jonp72 at 5:03 PM on December 26, 2016 [2 favorites]

Allegedly Gene Wilder is on the bongos/congas.
posted by maudlin at 5:04 PM on December 26, 2016

Wow, didn't know Alfred Brendel as an author, I only know him as the greatest performer of the Beethoven sonatas.
posted by StickyCarpet at 5:48 PM on December 26, 2016

Ctrl-F "Talking Heads"

Umm...no mention of "I Zimbra" (beyond--thank you--the post's title)?!?

Pfah!
posted by the sobsister at 6:49 PM on December 26, 2016 [3 favorites]

The Marie Osmond link was provided here on MF years ago, and I have been waking up to that as my alarm ever since. So thank you guys.
posted by Meatbomb at 12:39 AM on December 27, 2016

I'm surprised the author didn't mention the Varese/Zappa connection.
posted by bentpyramid at 4:10 AM on December 27, 2016

Also the inspiration for one of Vancouver's best bands, and certainly Vancouver's best band website.
posted by Beardman at 6:27 PM on December 27, 2016

Swell articles. Reminds me to look at UbuWeb.com some more. I luv this stuff when I don't hate it.
posted by ovvl at 6:43 PM on December 28, 2016 [1 favorite]