One last test

Final test post for today.  Jimmy Page instrumentals from Outrider as a reward for your patience.

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e♪  Writes of Winter (Outrider, 1988) YouTube

♪  Liquid Mercury (Outrider, 1988) YouTube

♪  Emerald Eyes (Outrider, 1988) YouTube

♪ Mage Music 1 playlist at YouTube
♪ Mage Music 2 playlist at YouTube
♪ Page & Plant playlist at YouTube

On This Day 11 April

The never ending Magick...

2010 11 April On This Day Jimmy Page went to a Bad Company concert at Wembley

2010 Paul Rodgers & Jimmy Page, Bad Company at Wembley (Ross Halfin photo)

• 1968 The Yardbirds-Boston,MA  at Boston Tea Party
• 1970 Led Zeppelin - St. Louis MO at Kiel Auditorium

Today is Mage Music's last daily On This Day post!  Last year I committed to providing a full year's worth, and now that it's done I won't post any more unless Jimmy Page's website offers some new ones. You can view each of them by clicking on the date in the right-hand navigation column.

Stay tuned for new posts here on the Mage Music blog about the music and Magick of Jimmy Page, as well as previews of new Mage Music projects. In the meantime, enjoy a few magazine covers featuring Jimmy Page over the years plus more of the best music in the world.

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♪  Baby Who's Driving Your Car (Jimmy Page, John Williams 1970) YouTube
♪  Asylum (Box of Frogs feat. Jimmy Page 1986) YouTube
♪  Writes of Winter (Jimmy Page, Outrider 1988) YouTube
♪  Absolution Blues (Coverdale/Page 1993) YouTube
♪  Depot Studio Session/Domino (Soundcloud)
♪  Domino (Jimmy Page, Net Aid East Rutherford NJ 1999) YouTube
♪  Kashmir (Page/Plant/Jones/Jason Bonham, O2 2007) YouTube
♪  Ramble On (Jimmy Page, It Might Get Loud 2008) YouTube
♪  Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin, Sunset Sound Mix/Remaster 2014) YouTube

♪ Mage Music 1 playlist at YouTube
♪ Mage Music 2 playlist at YouTube
♪ Page & Plant playlist at YouTube

On This Day 22 February

Awards may come and awards may go, but his music is forever

1989 22 February On This Day Writes of Winter didn't win a Grammy

2003 Stairway To Heaven did win a Grammy

1988 Jimmy Page, Outrider promo photo

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♪  Writes of Winter (Jimmy Page, Outrider 1988) YouTube
♪  Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin, MSG/The Song Remains The Same 1973) YouTube
♪  Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin, Sunset Sound Mix/Remaster 2014) YouTube

♪  Stairway to Heaven (Jimmy Page, Outrider Tour Worcester MA 1988) YouTube

♪ Mage Music 1 playlist at YouTube
♪ Mage Music 2 playlist at YouTube

On This Day 30 October

Jimmy Page wins it all if you ask me.

1987 30 October On This Day Writes of Winter nominated for a Grammy Award
♪ Writes of Winter (Soundcloud)

• 1966 The Yardbirds - Dick Clark Caravan of Stars tour, Harlingen, TX at Harlingen Municipal Auditorium
• 1966 The Yardbirds - Corpus Christi, TX at Corpus Christi Memorial Coliseum (last show with Jeff  Beck)
• 1969 Led Zeppelin - Buffalo, NY at Kleinhans Music Hall
• 1988 Jimmy Page Outrider Tour - Philadelphia, PA at The Spectrum
• 1998 Page & Plant – London, at University of London Union 

1969:

"As a unit, they are taskmasters. The intensity with which they look at each other while working is amazing. Their unit concentration is amazing. And their musical tightness is also amazing.

"Jimmy Page... gave a fascinating technical display of guitar artistry.  In [White Summer] Page pulls up a chair and calmly tunes his old Silvertone guitar. He strives for a strange form of musical tonality in his guitar and proceeds to through his paces. The number combined an interesting musical texture which hinted of the Far East, the folk idiom and the country-western style. in a dazzling display of manual dexterity . Page made his music become his speech. He communicated what he felt at the time. Page was the featured performer that night. His brilliance on the guitar let the crowd to numerous ovations.
~ Buffalo News, Oct. '69

Jimmy Page was using his 1961 Danelectro 3021 for session work in 1965 and began using it in 1967 on stage for White Summer with The Yardbirds. 

"I used a special tuning for that; the low string down to B, then A, D, G, A and D. It’s like a modal tuning, a sitar tuning, in fact."
~ Jimmy Page, Steve Rosen interview 1977

1969 Jimmy Page with Danelectro 3021 at Buffalo (photo Art Juchno)

1969 Jimmy Page/Led Zeppelin Buffalo (photo Art Juchno)

1969 Led Zeppelin Buffalo  (photo Art Juchno)

1987:
It's hard to imagine how any work of Jimmy Page's would not win any award it was nominated for. On the other hand, the way the Grammy Awards are determined gave Outrider a handicap right out of the gate because of the timing.

The Grammy process begins with members of the Recording Academy and record companies submitting entries for the eligibility year.  For Outrider that would have been 1 October 1987 through 30 September 1988.

Only Recording Academy Voting Members vote to nominate, however - record companies do not vote. Outrider was not released until June 1988. Thus the mystery: how did the October 1987 nomination come about at all when the album hadn't been released yet?

What's not a mystery is to know how incredible Outrider would have been as a double album if the tapes hadn't been stolen from Jimmy Page's house. Where are they now? And who do we have to kill to get them?

ca 1998 Jimmy Page with Danelectro  3021 "Silvertone" with replacement bridge

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♪  White Summer (The Yardbirds feat. Jimmy Page 30 March 1968) YouTube
♪  Full set (Led Zeppelin Buffalo 1969) YouTube
♪  Writes of Winter (Jimmy Page, Outrider) YouTube
♪  Night Flight (Page & Plant, London 1998) YouTube
♪  Full set (Page & Plant, London 1998) YouTube

On This Day 17 October

So much to do. So little time.
Note: Updated 10/17/15
Note: Updated 10/17/15 again with players

1969 17 October On This Day Led Zeppelin at Carnegie Hall (2 shows)

• 1969 Led Zeppelin - New York at Carnegie Hall (2 Shows: 8:30pm and 12:00 midnight)
• 1988 Jimmy Page Outrider Tour - Chicago, IL at UIC Pavilion

1969:
Eleven months. That's all it took for Led Zeppelin to go from embryo to Carnegie Hall. No rock band had played that venue since the Rolling Stones, five years prior, when rock performances were banned after a riot at the Stones' show. But Led Zeppelin had shot into the stratosphere like a rocket and could not be denied.

"This performance makes me realize we can be bigger than The Beatles and the Stones," Peter Grant told Richard Cole shortly after.
~ Led Zeppelin: The Concert File, Dave Lewis 2005

1969 Led Zeppelin at Carnegie Hall

1969 Led Zeppelin at Carnegie Hall

1969 17 October On This Day background image

2012:
43 years later, Jimmy Page was in Japan promoting the remasters, which have reached top ten on the charts once again. There won't be any more new Led Zeppelin - but Jimmy Page is, from his own account, working in his studio right now. New music from him sometime next year! What a gift!

2012 Jimmy Page in Japan (Ross Halfin photo)

♪

I'm experimenting with a different media storage option for music files I can't find on the web. So far nothing I've found has made me happy. The two below are Amazon Web Services links. Do they work for you? I had trouble uploading, so don't know if I'll settle for AWS. Suggestions?


♪  Over the Hills and Far Away (Jimmy Page/Outrider, Chicago 1988) AWS
♪  Writes of Winter (Jimmy Page/Outrider, Chicago 1988) AWS

OK, let's try these (added 10/17/15 1:13 PM local):

♪ Prelude (Jimmy Page/Outrider, Chicago 1988) AWS


♪ Over the Hills and Far Away (Jimmy Page/Outrider, Chicago 1988) AWS


♪ Writes of Winter (Jimmy Page/Outrider, Chicago 1988) AWS


♪ Emerald Eyes (Jimmy Page/Outrider, Chicago 1988) AWS

The Rite Stuff

"The need to use specific tools of magic is indirectly proportionate to the skill of the Mage"

~ Mage Music 5, June 10 2012



Mage Music 49

Before you read this post, you might want to read some previous posts about ritual here on Mage Music so we're all working from the same concepts..

• Mage Music 5: Ritual is not Magick, June 10, 2012
• Mage Music 11: No Shortcuts No Substitutions, July 22, 2012
• Mage Music 15: Fetching the Magick, September 1, 2012

In fiction it’s all about doing the ritual correctly.  Harry Potter and friends have to go to a special school to get the rituals down, and they’re tested for correctness before advancing to higher levels.  Vulcans experiencing pon-farr who choose not to take a mate may engage in ritual battle that is witnessed in ceremony by other Vulcans.  Harry Dresden has to invoke his powers with ritualistically correct words and gestures.  

We all accept that ritual is a core part of Magick, but the irony is that the ritual itself doesn't really matter.

Humans have a tendency to think that there is a cost for everything.  This is unsurprising given that everything that lives expends – and therefore must obtain – energy in order to survive as well as grow and thrive.  This kind of thinking about using energy, however, tends to confuse the thinker about the whole point of living, which is not about gaining energy but rather the experience of making choices that satisfy desire. The gathering of energy is a process, not a goal.

Magick is the on-purpose use of energy to make the choices that satisfy a desire to change reality.  Ritual in Magick is simply the tool used to hold all the components of desire and will in place while maintaining a connection to the Universe long enough for the Universe to respond to the Mage's desire.  

No Wrong Rite

In Star Wars, the Force is about using energy directly to change reality – no ritual needed. Yoda didn't tell Luke how to raise the X-wing out of the swamp - the Jedi master simply observed that Luke’s own mental preconceptions were the true limitations to using the Force. All Luke had to do was get all the other crud out of his mind and then just…. do it.

In real life the ultimate failure of Magick is likely to come about because of the inability of the Mage to sustain pure desire and will long enough and powerfully enough to allow the process of Magick to manifest the desired change in reality.  Crud just keeps getting in the way.

Form Follows Function

A good ritual is simply one that provides the structure for Magickal success. Period. More is less.  The specific words, gestures or objects used don’t matter as long as they are meaningful for the Mage, since they are all merely symbols for aspects of the desired reality that the Mage wishes to remain aware of without actually thinking about as the rites are performed. The structure of a ritual should be based on its purpose and the purpose in Magick is to change reality. Thus the guiding principle for a Mage's ritual is to do whatever works and provides satisfaction in doing so, because satisfaction is an integral part of Magick.

After all, the whole business of Magick starts with desire. There’s no point in doing what thou wilt if it doesn't satisfy the desire.

A Mage can, of course, use a pre-existing ritual if it will get him where he wants to go – if it satisfies his desire. If it feels wrong, it is wrong.  If a Mage prefers to create his own ritual, then choosing what feels right and good will determine its form, and correctness of ritual will be measured as much by the level of satisfaction in performance of the ritual as by the resulting change in reality. The two must match, for as above, so below.

♪ ♪ ♪

Note:  All week long my sound system's been down and I haven't been able to listen to music.  All week long I've been hearing Writes of Winter in my head.  Just thought I'd let you know.

Mage Music: Ritual is not Magick

A black robe with a black cat looking on, a few candles and props, a chanted spell and a pass with the wand:  Magic?  No way!  On stage, maybe - but that's not real magick at all.

The truth:  Even when they use tools, today’s occult magicians and most other reality transforming professionals don't perform rituals like they did in the olden days.  In spite of what you may have learned from Harry Potter, real magic doesn’t require wands, spells, magic potions and powders, pentangles, crystals or any other prop to make the connections with the energy that will do the heavy lifting.  Still, all those things and more can be used to create magic - even if they are just tools that make the job easier.

The need to use specific tools of magic is indirectly proportionate to the skill of the mage. What this means is that a powerful mage can use anything – or nothing at all – to bring about transformations in the world, whereas a lesser magician can become dependent upon ritual, on the use of tools in a formulaic way to focus the mind and keep the will of the magician on task.

The reason rituals and magical props are not intrinsically necessary is because rituals are not the magic itself.  The fact is, anyone can use the recommended magical tools and perform the prescribed rituals with them, but only some will get the desired magical results.  Even the most highly skilled practice of ritual can never achieve the same level of results as a gifted mage who isn’t even half trying, because magical success resides not in the ritual but in the person performing the magic.

Lascaux, France paleolithicave painting

A little history
One theory of art history is that cave paintings, petrographs and petroglyphs were not art so much as summonings, blessings, and/or entreaties to the spirit world for success in the hunt.  The Lascaux cave paintings are around 17,300 years old and petroglyphs sites in Australia have been dated at 27,000 to 40,000 years old.  Undoubtedly the first human music consisted of humming, whistling, and singing; rhythm-keeping in the form of clapping or drumming must have occurred early on as well.

Music is powerful.  We don’t need science to tell us that music can evoke strong emotions and changed states of awareness (although science can, in fact, tell us how that works).  Shamanic drumming has its modern-day counterpart in trance music; a young child can tell the difference between happy and sad music; words that are used to describe music also are used to describe spiritual experience.  There has always been something magical about the application of paint to canvas or stringing one word or one musical note after another and having the end result be something that has meaning above and beyond the physical object.  For some practitioners of the various arts, the result is also magick.

Performance vs. creation

Jimmy Page is often referred to as “The Master” or “Mage”.   Magick or music - the honorifics acknowledge the quality and quantity his gift and his expression of it.  Yet performance itself, no matter how dazzling and technically excellent, does not a Master make.

Jimmy Page is definitely a master musician.  The YouTube playlist provided here includes selections of original music of Mr. Page's over a 15 year period from 1983-1998.  These songs were chosen to provide a powerful example of the skill of a musician at the level of mage.  Please note that some songs have solos that I have identified for particular consideration (also scroll down for individual links).

While any search of YouTube will yield numerous young guitarists (and some not-so-young or unknown) who have performed Jimmy Page’s tracks from various songs, none carry the magic of Mr. Page’s own work as he performs it.  Many can play the works of Jimmy Page's with technical excellence that may surpass his own technical skills, but none of it is magic.

“Music is an outburst of the soul.”  Frederick Delius

Jimmy Page, as has often been noted by his detractors, can be a sloppy guitarist and even off-pitch, yet somehow the magic is still there.  This is because ritual – musical technique – is not the magic.  You can listen to far more technically accomplished guitarists and be left cold.  Magic comes about as a result of the desire and will of the mage, not technique.  Jimmy Page plays music and makes it his own - he is always creating, not simply performing.  The music he produces is the result of focus of his desire and will; he is not merely producing a sequence of notes on his guitar that he has produced before, that anyone can produce – he is creating a new state in the world that matches his inner vision.

Each of the songs in the playlist is different, but each at its core expresses a certain Truth.  The expression of that Truth is magic.

It is highly recommended that you do not watch the videos while listening to the selections below. Concentrate on the sound for there lies the magic.


1983  Midnight Moonlight Live, ARMS concert with Paul Rogers [note particularly 3:23 – 5:15]

1988  Emerald Eyes Studio version, Outrider

1988  Writes of Winter Studio version, Outrider 

1993  Saccharin Unreleased, Coverdale/Page  [note particularly 2:50 – 3:16]

1998  Walking Into Clarksdale Live,  La Cigale Paris March 30 [note particularly 4:22 – end]