Undercover Orchestra Plays Ravel's Bolero



Anton Hecht (previously on Neatorama) sent us a new video of a performance piece where musicians tired of Muzak got together at a neighborhood shopping center to perform Maurice Ravel's Bolero, much to the delight of shoppers. Hit play or go to Link [YouTube]

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How'way, lads. (In American, "give us a break"). We're all amateurs, we all had to walk and play, and we only had one chance to do it. This was in the Bus Station, at 11.30 on a Saturday morning, with all the normal passengers, not static in a studio, with as many retakes as needed. I seem to remember the normal scoring uses two sidedrums, played in alternate measures (but I might be wrong) Doug had to do it on his own, as well as carrying the drum at the same time. The operators gave permission to make the film, so we were never going to be thrown out. ( and we're not a marching band. We played Mozart last weekend)
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Now that's something different. But if Bolero can be played during a Super Bowl commercial then why not a shopping mall?

If you like Bolero then check out the song "The Bomber" by The James Gang. They were a hard rock band from the early 1970s which featured Joe Walsh on lead guitar before he went on to greater fame with The Eagles. During the long instrumental bridge, Walsh plays a small portion of Bolero.

Initially, Ravel's estate disapproved of The James Gang use of Bolero because they weren't an orchestra and the group was forced to edit it out from later releases. But Ravel's estate would eventually relent and the Bolero portion was restored and I might say wisely so.
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