Bigger Strings: Maya Beiser-Epitaph

Maya Beiser: Epitaph
[purchase] 

I’m not sure where I first heard about Israel-born, avant-garde classical cellist Maya Beiser, but it might well have been from this piece by Cover Me founder Ray Padgett about her awesome cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir.” Beiser’s 2014 album Uncovered is a collection of ten rock songs completely reimagined by Beiser and arranger Evan Ziporyn, a fellow member of Bang on a Can All-Stars. The songs run the gamut from Muddy Waters to Janis Joplin, to Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Nirvana (which I wrote about here), and my favorite of them all, her cover of King Crimson’s elegiac “Epitaph,” from their debut album, In The Court of the Crimson King. 

“Epitaph” was written by Robert Fripp, Ian McDonald, Greg Lake, and Michael Giles with lyrics written by Peter Sinfield, and those lyrics, were sung beautifully by Lake, who explained that the song “is basically a song about looking with confusion upon a world gone mad.” It features heavy use of Mellotron along with woodwinds and dramatic tympani, giving it a symphonic feel. 

It was this complex, symphonic sound that attracted Beiser, whose classical training did not prevent her from consuming and appreciating popular music throughout her life. In an interview for Classical Voice, Beiser said:

I was very much entrenched in classical music, and none of my teachers knew anything about Genesis, King Crimson, Brian Eno. It was not part of my education. I started to listen to this music and it completely transformed me. Pink Floyd were totally revolutionary, creating a symphonic like piece. King Crimson’s ‘Epitaph’ is one of my favorite songs of all time, and it lends itself to cello because their thinking was symphonic — classical. 

She continued: 

Part of my motivation for doing this album is for people to see how this is great music, how the masters of our time are just as great as but different than Beethoven and Schubert. … All classical music performances are covers. 

Continuing this approach, Beiser recently released a version of David Bowie’s last album, Blackstar, re imagined as a cello concerto. 

To create her cover of “Epitaph,” Beiser overdubbed and processed her cello, and Ziporyn added just a hint of clarinet and bass clarinet. Beiser slows down the tempo a little, and if anything, her instrumental version is even sadder and statelier than the great original. 

As a brief aside, since this is a piece about the cello and King Crimson, about five years after the debut album, a mostly different lineup of King Crimson released Red, one of my favorite albums, and it includes a cellist (and acoustic bass player), who are uncredited, and whose identity appears to still be a mystery. 

One more aside--the punk record label Epitaph Records, home (at times) of bands such as Rancid, Bad Religion, Descendants, The Distillers and Social Distortion, was named after a lyric from this decidedly not punk song.

Same Name/Different Artist: Ian M(a)cDonald

King Crimson: The Court of the Crimson King
[purchase In The Court of the Crimson King]
Fairport Convention: Time Will Show The Wiser
[purchase Fairport Convention]
Quiet Sun: Rongwrong
[purchase Mainstream]

Surprisingly, there are a few Ian McDonalds or MacDonalds who are prominent in British music, although maybe it isn’t all that surprising, since I bet it is a pretty common name over there (and here, for that matter, according to Google). And there are some connections among them. So, you need to pay close attention here, or you might get lost.

Let’s start with multi-instrumentalist Ian McDonald, born in 1946 in Osterly, England, best known for his woodwind playing. This McDonald participated in sessions in 1968 with Michael and Peter Giles, Robert Fripp and McDonald’s then-girlfriend, Judy Dyble (who had recently been replaced in Fairport Convention by Sandy Denny). After some personnel shifting, the nucleus of Fripp, Michael Giles and McDonald, along with Greg Lake, became King Crimson, releasing the classic In The Court of the Crimson King. He left the band after that record along with percussionist Michael Giles, and recorded an album as McDonald and Giles (although Giles also appeared on King Crimson’s second album as a session musician).

McDonald became a session musician playing on, among other songs, T. Rex’s “Bang a Gong,” before guesting on King Crimson’s great Red album, with plans to rejoin the band, until Fripp (temporarily) disbanded it. Moving from the sublime to the ridiculous, he became a founding member of Foreigner (with one of the Mick Joneses), forcing me to mention that execrable band (Note—it is hard to type while holding your nose).

Thereafter, he was a member of the 21st Century Schizoid Band, essentially a Crimson cover band featuring mostly former (and future) members of King Crimson, has backed a number of other musicians, including former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett, former King Crimson singer/bassist John Wetton, Dyble, and others, and has guested with Asia.

Moving on to Ian Matthews MacDonald, also born in 1946 (9 days before the guy above), in the delightfully named Barton-upon Humber, England, although he later moved to the not delightfully named Scunthorpe. In 1967, this MacDonald was recruited to join Fairport Convention, and sang on their first two albums, the first of which included Judy Dyble. At some point, he changed his name to Ian Matthews, to avoid confusion with the King Crimson McDonald. When Fairport Convention began to move away from American folk/rock music and toward British folk, Ian found himself not invited to recording sessions, and quit/was fired before the release of Fairport’s great Unhalfbricking album.

Matthews then formed Matthews’ Southern Comfort, an essentially Americana album, initially featuring a number of members of Fairport and their circle—his second album spawned a hit cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock.” After that, he was in and out of various bands and released solo albums with very occasional commercial success, and changed the spelling of his first name to Iain.

British music critic Ian MacCormick changed his name to Ian MacDonald and is best known for a book, Revolution in the Head, a critical history of the Beatles. But this MacDonald was also a musician, providing lyrics to the band Quiet Sun, which featured his brother Bill MacCormick and future Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera. He sang backup on Quiet Sun’s excellent “reunion” album Mainstream. Maybe he is on this song. Sadly, he committed suicide in 2003 after suffering for years with depression.

There’s also an American actor named Ian MacDonald (born Ulva Pippy in 1914), possibly best known as villain Frank Miller in High Noon (although in 1949’s Come to the Stable, he played Mr. Matthews). I have no idea if his character’s first name was Ian, or Iain, for that matter.