Copenhagen Movie Song
Alyssa Dipiero
Copenhagen is a jazz standard composed in 1924 by bandleader Charlie Davis and first recorded in that year by the Wolverine Orchestra featuring Bix Beiderbecke in a foxtrot tempo. The title refers to Copenhagen tobacco, favored by Davis's bass player. Lyrics were added by Walter Melrose to the tune, which is a blues in B-flat.
On April 5, 1924, Davis's jazz band began an engagement at the Ohio Theater in Indianapolis, Indiana, and performed the song "Copenhagen." That evening, members of The Wolverines, including cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, heard the performance and asked Davis to be allowed to perform the tune in their own engagement.[1] Davis agreed. The Wolverines subsequently worked out their own arrangement in the course of engagements at Indiana University and elsewhere over the following weeks.
The Wolverines recorded it at Gennett Studios in Richmond, Indiana on May 6, 1924. The single was released by Gennett Records as 5453-B and also by Claxtonola Records as 40336-B as by the Jazz Harmonizers.[2] The A side was "Oh Baby", recorded at the same session. "Copenhagen" was published in the same year (in the Wolverines' arrangement) by the Melrose Bros. Music Company of Chicago, Illinois. At least nine other recordings of the song were released in 1924 alone. The Wolverines' recording features a brief cornet solo by Beiderbecke. Fletcher Henderson and His Orchestra recorded "Copenhagen" on October 30, 1924, five months after the Beiderbecke version.[3] The recording by Fletcher Henderson and His Orchestra, arranged by Don Redman, features a solo by Louis Armstrong.
This course is an integrated language and culture course with a major focus on learning Danish through music, rhythm, and song. Music has proven highly beneficial to second language acquisition as pronunciation and vocabulary is learned in playful ways through repetition and engagement. At the same time, lyrics and rhymes are rich sources of information about cultural values, beliefs, customs, relations, and national narratives as well as cultural differences.
The class is based on a high degree of experiential learning by using musical elements and the city as our classroom. We will approach Danish culture from both a historical and contemporary perspective.
When studying the Danish language, we will employ a communicative, functional approach, so you will be able to use the language actively on a basic level, thereby giving you a valuable basic for intercultural encounters during the study abroad experience. Through rhythm and song, the course will focus on everyday Danish, reading comprehension, and basic grammar. The course will explore how culture is reflected in language through lyrics and other sources. By analyzing keywords and concepts and applying appropriate etiquette, you learn how to navigate in a foreign culture. An important component of the course is your own observations of the Danish society as well as critical analysis of the presented materials.
M.A. (Danish as Second Language, University of Copenhagen, 2014). Cand.Mag. (Danish, University of Copenhagen, 2007). Cellist, Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus, 1988. Research focus includes Danish literature, youth novels from 1930-1960, and music and language acquisition. Editor for Society for Danish Language and Literature. Teacher at Copenhagen Language Center and Hvidovre School of Music. With DIS since 2015.
Chris LeDoux was riding high by the mid-'90's. He'd gone from 20 years of self-released albums to a spot on the Capitol Records roster, thanks in large part to label mate Garth Brooks' ringing endorsements. Heck, it's not too much of a stretch to liken Brooks' LeDoux namedrop in "Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)" to when Kurt Cobain put over his favorite obscure bands in interviews and liner notes. The latter resulted in such surprises as the Raincoats being on the Geffen roster at the same time as Nirvana.
But you're probably here to read about Toby Keith and not the Raincoats. Keith went from "Should've Been a Cowboy," a hit from 1993 known by grandparents, parents and children whenever it plays in the car, to collaborating with someone who lived and sung rodeo songs on a 1995 remake of LeDoux's "Copenhagen."
"If you don't use this stuff, don't start; but if you're hopelessly addicted, I guess you've got to find something good to say about a bad habit," begins a swinging tune featuring a sense of humor comparable to that of Jerry Jeff Walker, Jerry Reed or even Hank Williams Jr., with the latter comparison based mostly on 1984's "Attitude Adjustment." Another example of LeDoux's jokier material is the similarly-titled yet very different "Copenhagen Angel."
Keith's another artist with a knack for being hilarious during a song without detracting from his God-given vocal talent, so in retrospect, he was the right person to join LeDoux for this wacky song about chewing tobaccy.
The honesty and raw emotion from the severity of grief over the loss of someone you loved deeply that is expressed in this song make it a perfect choice to be played at a memorial service. A service is often a collective gathering of loved ones in mourning, and listening to this song allows for a kind of shared reflection on the permanent, physical absence of a loved one; one can reflect on the grief associated with a loss that will somehow linger on eternally, in some form or another.
I ended up in Copenhagen for only one day, and after playing on the streets for change, I found myself at the top of a hill in the botanic gardens. It was during this trip, on this hill that I wrote the song "Traveling."
There just so happened to be a class of small children on a field trip that day, and to my surprise they came over and sat politely and silently around me while I played guitar and worked on the song! After listening for a while, one of the little girls came up to me and gave me a heart-shaped eraser which I have carried in my guitar case ever since that day.
For this stream, I will return to the botanic gardens once again, the very spot where I first played in Copenhagen. I will be walking through the gardens while I perform, ending on the top of the hill to play the song I wrote there so many years ago.
As part of this livestream, I will be playing a new, unreleased song, and I will be sticking around to do a Q&A after the set as well (so feel free to put questions into the chat)! This is going to be a really special event, and I hope to see you there :)
It's Sunday night, freezing outside and I'm late to Loppen. I'm still accustomed to shows here never starting before 20:30 so I notice it way too late that the music is scheduled to get going by an unspecified "around 8 pm", so I miss the first few songs of tonight's opening band Riverhead. The local boys have been brought in to open the festivities for the two American bands on offer, the hyped hardcore crew Gum and the rising mid-tempo punk rockers Militarie Gun.
Riverhead is well underway with their set as I'm dropping my coat and grabbing a beer from the bar. The venue is half empty at this point, but that doesn't stop vocalist Jacob Bredahl from aggressively pacing in front of the stage by the curious onlookers, grabbing a hold of the wooden pillars and rafters from time to time, and generally trying to get something going in the crowd. "Broken Boy" sounds good as usual, as does "Time" with its raucous "Time is running out for me, time is running out for you" finale. "Torches" finishes their set with the first song where the crowd seems to get into the show. Despite their initial hype, I'm still not quite convinced Riverhead has neither the songs nor the energy (save for Bredahl) to matter in the long run. 6
Gumm is one of those hardcore bands with an undeniable buzz in the underground right now. Their debut album "Slogan Machine" has received rave reviews, and their on-stage performance does not disappoint. "Yaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!", is how their vocalist starts the show with his razor-sharp scream, while frantically racing across the stage and dragging his mic stand with him. This continues into crazed jumping, constant trampoline-style bouncing by just about everyone in the band, and non-stop running back and forth across the stage. Oh yeah, this is a high-energy onslaught, alright, which immediately captures the crowd's attention.
The set is jam-packed with explosive moments of fervour, driven by their old-school, 80s-inspired hardcore played with a modern twist (think similar vein as Turnstile, Angel Du$t, et al.). It's in-your-face and genuinely raw while remaining instantly catchy on the first listen. With the band engaged in constant movement, shaking and swirling in their respective spots, and their vocalist oozing charisma and energy while manically pacing the stage (to an extent where his mic keeps disconnecting), their explosive set is sublime. What a positive surprise that swept the rug from underneath the Loppen audience's feet and resulted in two-step energy throughout. 8
Now that's quite a spectacle to follow up on, yet it's clear that the crowd is here for Militarie Gun. They kick off with "Will Logic" where the whole band is bouncing up and down, which is mirrored by the crowd during "Let Me Be Normal" right after. Here, it feels like Loppen is morphing into a trampoline given how much energy is exhibited by the crowd.
"We just released a new record called "Life Under The Gun" and we're gonna be playing a bunch of songs off it", vocalist Ian Shelton announces shortly after. And fans are in for a treat, as the band will have played almost every song off their debut, as well as most of the deluxe edition of "All Roads Lead To The Gun" by the time they finish tonight.
Apparently, they snitched on themselves in Norway last night by having a weed logo on their t-shirt, so they got caught with the drugs and didn't get into the country, resulting in a canceled show. And given that "My Friends Are Having A Hard Time" is played twice today, and the band plays 21 songs instead of the 22 they announced, there's some reason to suspect the cops might have been onto something.
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