I realized recently that I hadn't made any recordings for this project this year, so I did the first section of Rod Argent's A 4th gymnopédie. (On Red House, it's called "A 4th Gymnopedie," but on Classically Speaking, it's called "A fourth gymnopédie." If Satie's pieces are to be followed, I think A 4th gymnopédie would be the best format.)
I set a click track and recorded my excerpt based on that, but I think it's a bit faster than Argent's tempo. I was going from memory, and it turns out I was a bit late for a few notes; otherwise, I think this is accurate.
I used the Bösendorfer Grand Imperial voice on my Nord Electro 5 because it's the closest I could get to Argent's Bechstein (which he uses for this piece in this excerpt from A Keyboard Approach and which is mentioned in thesetwo interviews).
A couple months ago, I subscribed to the Zombies Fan Club's YouTube channel. This morning, I was very surprised to find two clips from Rod Argent's A Keyboard Approach in my subscription box. According to Russo's Collector's Guide it came out (on VHS) on 11 August 1992. A couple times (even as recently as a month or two ago), I went looking for a used copy on Amazon, but I never had any luck.
It's an instructional video that runs just over an hour (66 minutes), but the clips feature only Argent's performances of "Baby Don't You Cry" and "A 4th Gymnopedie" from Red House (1988).
In the video itself, instead of "Baby Don't You Cry," as it's titled on Red House, Argent calls the song "Baby Don't You Cry No More," which is the title it later had on Out of the Shadows (2001).
Argent confirms what I was pretty certain of: "A 4th Gymnopedie" (titled "A fourth gymnopédie" on Classically Speaking) is meant as "a little tribute to" Satie's gymnopédies. In verifying my spelling there, I discovered that Satie's gymnopédies were published in 1888, so Argent's "A 4th Gymnopedie" from 1988 is from a hundred years later.
A little bit of scrolling credits is included at the end of the video with "A 4th Gymnopedie." All that's visible is "Fugue in C minor," which I'm assuming is Bach's Fugue in C minor, BWV 846 from The Well-Tempered Clavier, which Argent later recorded for Classically Speaking (1998).
I'm pretty sure that the "Baby Don't You Cry" video was filmed in the same studio where the Zombies recorded Breathe Out, Breathe In. Here's the video of the title track for comparison:
Obviously, the equipment is moved around, but the windows look the same.
For my Collection Audit project, I just listened to Rod Argent's Classically Speaking, and it reminded me of a thing I meant to write here months (or even longer) ago.
The final track on Classically Speaking is "A fourth gymnopédie," which is a re-recording of "A 4th gymnopedie" from Argent's Red House album (from ten years earlier). I don't remember when I realized this, but it continues Satie's gymnopédies. Satie wrote three, and Argent's is the "fourth."
I haven't really lookt into the music yet, but - just from hearing them - it's fairly obvious that Argent's has some musical similarities with Satie's.
