Joan Baez Baptism CD

BAPTISM features Joan Baez singing and reading poems and prose by Walt Whitman, Federico Garcia Lorca, James Joyce, William Blake, Arthur Rimbaud and others, to the accompaniment of scores by Peter Schickele.

Probably Joan Baez's artiest record, and therefore one not widely appreciated by many folk traditionalists, 1968's BAPTISM is partly traditional folk songs and partly readings and musical settings of poetry and prose by authors like Walt Whitman, Federico Garcia Lorca, James Joyce, William Blake and Arthur Rimbaud. The whole is arranged and produced by Peter Schickele--better-known as classical-comedy composer/performer P.D.Q. Bach and host of the public radio program Schickele Mix--and in many ways, this is much more a Peter Schickele album than a Joan Baez album. Baroquely over-orchestrated and exceedingly precious, most of BAPTISM works in spite of itself, largely due to the wit of Schickele's arrangements. Traditional folk fans may not like this at all, but fans of Van Dyke Parks or Judy Collins' collaborations with Joshua Rifkin may really enjoy it.

Joan Baez's most unusual album, Baptism is of a piece with the "concept" albums of the late '60s, but more ambitious than most and different from all of them. Baez by this time was immersed in various causes, concerning the Vietnam War, the human condition, and the general state of the world, and it seemed as though every note of music that she sang was treated as important -- sometimes in a negative way by her opponents; additionally, popular music was changing rapidly, and even rock groups that had seldom worried in their music about too much beyond the singer's next sexual conquest were getting serious. Baptism was Baez getting more serious than she already was, right down to the settings of her music, and redirecting her talent from folk song to art song, complete with orchestral accompaniment. Naturally, her idea of a concept album would differ from that of, say, Frank Sinatra or the Beatles. Baptism was a body of poetry selected, edited, and read and sung by Baez, and set to music by Peter Schickele (better known for his comical musical "discoveries" associated with "P.D.Q. Bach," but also a serious musician and composer). In 1968, amid the strife spreading across the world, the album had a built-in urgency that made it work as a mixture of art and message -- today, it seems like a precious and overly self-absorbed period piece. Baez lacks the speaking voice to pull off an album's worth of readings, though her interpretations of Federico García Lorca's "Casida of the Lament" and "Gacela of the Dark Death" show her achieving a level of compelling expressiveness that is lacking elsewhere; and the recording of Countee Cullen's "Epitaph for a Poet" features some beautiful accompaniment by Schickele. Additionally, the sung portions, including "Old Welsh Song," "Who Murdered the Minutes," "The Magic Wood," and "Oh, Little Child" by Henry Treece, "Of the Dark Past" by James Joyce, "All in Green Went My Love Riding" by e.e. cummings, and the lullaby "All the Pretty Little Horses" are beautiful and sustain those portions of the album. Baptism is primarily for Baez completists, however, although it is also a singular reminder for '60s history buffs that not all of the antiwar movement's music, or the work coming out of the folk scene in 1968, was necessarily loud, harsh, or bitter. [The 2003 reissue adds three previously unreleased tracks from the original recording sessions, Treece's "Mystic Numbers: 36. Wedding Song," Jo

Recorded at Vanguard's 23rd St. Studio, New York.

Personnel includes: Joan Baez (vocals); Peter Schickele (conductor).

Personnel: Joan Baez (vocals).

Liner Note Author: Arthur Levy .

Recording information: Vanguard's 23rd St. Studio, NY.

Editor: Joan Baez.

Photographers: Richard Golden; Michel Quenneville.

Translators: Louise Varese; J.L. Gili; Peter Levi; Robin Milner Gulland; Kenneth Rexroth; Lawrence Ferlinghetti; Arthur Waley; Stephen Spender.Rolling Stone (10/12/68, p.29) - "...BAPTISM is an intriguing collection of poetry and prose sung and spoken by Miss Baez. It is also an intensely personal vision communicated through a legacy of shared insights spanning several centuries..."
Spirituality & Health (Vol. 7, No. 2, p.68) - ?Rarely has a voice in American pop music rung with such a lastingly moral tone.?
Mojo (Publisher) (p.130) - 4 stars out of 5 - "[I]ntriguing, arty, angry, experimental..."