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Please help me with this Jon Lord quote
Over the years, it’s been fun to try to figure out various quotes that Jon Lord and Ritchie Blackmore threw into their lengthy improvisations in the 70’s. A bunch of the classical ones has been covered in Janell Duxbury’s list in this site.
There is one quote I have been trying to locate for years. This particular one appears at around 16:20 into Wring that neck on Live in Stockholm 1970 (AKA Scandinavian Nights). There’s a soundclip included below so you can check out what I mean. Does anyone know where this is from? It can of course be a Lord original, something he improvised at that spot but I have a feeling it comes from somewhere else. Anyone?
UPDATE
Here is a soundfile with the quotes from Dvorak’s “New World Symphony” and Dave Brubeck’s “Unsquare Dance” for all to compare to the Lord quote above.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
That sounds like a variation on “Unsquare Dance”, a 12 bar blues in 7/4 time signature. It was composed and recorded by Dave Brubeck in 1961 and originally released on the “Time Further Out” album. The song made it to #74 on the Billboard charts.
May 6th, 2009 at 15:07Damn, Rob, that was quick! And from listening to “Unsquare dance” it seems you are right! I wish I had a prize for you because that was impressive! Great tune.
May 6th, 2009 at 15:17The part that Lord quoted is a melody from Antonin Dvorak’s 9th symphony which also called “From The New World”. You can find it in approximately 03:00 of the first part, “Adagio, allegro molto”. Dave Brubeck also used the same melody in the song named “Unsquare Dance”. Cheers!
May 6th, 2009 at 15:41Jon is quite a Dave Brubeck fan. He has said many times that the idea for the Concerto was inspired in Brubeck’s “Dialogues for Jazz Combo and Orchestra”. And, if you go back to the In Rock remaster, there’s a piece of studio talk in which someone shouts “Taaaaake five!” and Jon does a brief quote of Brubeck’s Take Five.
May 6th, 2009 at 15:42Isn’t it Dvorak – Symphony No. 9 “From the New World”?
May 6th, 2009 at 16:45(When I listened to “Dialogues”, I also found a snippet that’s very similar to a snippet in Pictures of Home. But I’d have to double-hear it.)
May 6th, 2009 at 16:50Svante,
to fully confirm your findings you may check Jon’s official DVD from Germany 2005. He played a fabulous version of “Unsquare Dance” there. It was also his choice to include it in the set of the earlier 1999 “Pictured Within” Tour in Germany. Many times has The Master said about his affection for Dave Brubeck works, and that’s indeed a great tune fitting Jon’s stage temperament lovely.
May 6th, 2009 at 17:45Thats definitely and without any doubt Brubecks “Unsquare dance”. This organ/drum sequence imho is one of the gems of this particular “Wring Than Neck” version.
May 6th, 2009 at 19:11I can add a bit to Rob’s post – the 7-in a bar metre indeed might owe something to “Unsquare Dance” but the tune is from the first movement of Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony. The Dvorak is one of Jon’s favourite classical works, and his love of Dave Brubeck is well known, as one of the inspirations behind the “Concerto for Group and Orchestra”.
Right, I’m going back in me box now…
Cheers
May 6th, 2009 at 21:27Paul Mann
it is in fact a theme from the New World Symphony, bij Dvorak. It’s a 50 minute piece and the tune is first introduced around 03m38s.
Jon is quite a fan of this piece. You can here him play the main theme (another theme from the same piece) on the Making of Machine Head extra’s Keep on Space Truckin’, where he explains that he sometimes would throw in well known tunes to see if Roger would be quick enough to make the chord change.
May 7th, 2009 at 06:28Well, I think that was not what Lord referred to.
Listen to Dvorak´s 9th Symphony, first movement.
That´s what it is!
Cheers,
May 7th, 2009 at 07:20Christopher
Jon Lord also prominently quotes another part from another movement from “The New World” during Space Truckin´ on Made In Japan(escapes me which movement at the moment,it´s the beginning of it though).
May 7th, 2009 at 18:06Could you guys please tell me something: around what time does Jon quote The New World symphony on Made in Japan’s Space Truckin´? I have heard that version many times but I can’t seem to find it. I know that he quotes Jupiter from Holst´s the Planets at some point.
Cheers
May 8th, 2009 at 08:48Allan
Roger Glover hated Jon Lord at that time : he is a preposterous classical player who always boasts on how much classical music he knows”. And JOn lOrd teased him playing suddelnly some classical theme to see if Glover could follow him, but Glover hated all this game.
October 16th, 2019 at 14:48