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A Few Points about Burt Bacharach ... MlHAI Cucos Introduction If you go into any bookshop or library in the US or UK, you won't find any biographies on Burt Bacharach. This fact intrigued me, and inspiredme towrite this article in order to findout why. After a look inGroveMusic Online and searches of the British Library and the Westminster Libraries database, it soon became clear that very lit tle at all has been written about theman. There have been press reviews and articles about him to support tours or record releases, along with a few TV and radio shows about his life and work. But all of these cover much the same biographical outline. The reason why this is strange is that, for aman who has enjoyed such phenomenal success over five decades of popular music, he must be alone amongst stars innot having been the subject of at least one biography1 A Few Points about Burt Bacharach 199 Part of the reason must be that he does not court the press, even though he has at times appeared on the cover of many magazines. He keeps his private lifeprivate and has never written an autobiography. So what about the press and the critics? Iwant to explore in this articlewhy it should be that such a successfulmusic maker should be shunned by the criticswho inmany ways control public perception of an artist. Well, actually, the praise has always been there. It comes from the music establishment and?most importantly, I believe?it comes from three generations of ordinary people who love Bacharach's music and have continued to buy his records. He has won Oscars and Grammys, as well as a new generation of fans of his fine 1998 collaboration with Elvis Costello, Painted fromMemory. Recently, on January 22, 2001, composer-arranger-producer-pianist Burt Bacharach, composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, and synthesizer inven tor Robert Moog were announced as the three recipients of Sweden's prestigious Polar Music Prize, the Royal Swedish Academy of Music Award, in Stockholm, Sweden. The three recipients joined past winners Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Joni Mitchell, Ravi Shankar, Ray Charles, Isaac Stern, Dizzy Gillespie, Witold Lutoslawski, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Quincy Jones, Mstislav Rostropovitch, Elton John, Eric Ericson, Pierre Boulez, Iannis Xenakis, and others. For Burt, thiswas the highest honor he has ever been paid, because it is the first sign that he is being recognized as a musical great alongside some of the most important names in twentieth-century music. Dizzy Gillespie inparticular remains one of his own musical heroes. But first I would like to summarize my research about Burt Bacharach's life. 1. Burt's Life Story EDUCATION Burt was born 12May 1928 inKansas City, Missouri, and his Jewish familymoved to Forest Hills, New York when he was two years old. As a child he learned cello, then drums, before finally settlingwith the piano as his instrument. He hated going to piano lessons at first.His parents pushed him to be a great composer, and sent him to various specialist music schools and summer schools. Burt resented this,mainly because he had no social life and realized that his friendswho had become baseball heroes and football hulks were the ones who always scored with the 200 Perspectives of New Music ladies. This inspired Burt to form and lead a Friday-night dance band to play for the other kids, and soon he became Mr. Cool. He was influenced by two main threads of music. On one hand Burt grew up with the bebop jazz of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk, which he could hear on the street, on stage inNew York, and on his radio. On the other hand his formalmusical education taught him classical music. His favorite composers are Debussy and Ravel, especially the latter'sDaphnis and Chloe Suite No. 2. Burt studied music theory and composition at theMannes School in New York, at Berkshire Music Center, at the New School for Social Research inNew York, atMontreal's McGill University, and at theMusic Academy of theWest in Santa Barbara, California. At these institutions his twomost notable teachers were Darius Milhaud and Henry Cowell, two important figures in twentieth...

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