Look up eleven in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Eleven can refer to:

• The year 11
• The year 11 BC
• 11 (number)
• The month of November

Television[link]

• Eleven, an Australian free to air digital television channel, part of Network Ten, jointly owned by Ten Network Holdings and CBS Studios International

Writing[link]

• Eleven (novel), a 2006 novel by British author David Llewellyn
• Eleven, a 1970 collection of short stories by Patricia Highsmith
• Eleven (Myracle novel), a teen novel by Lauren Myracle
• Eleven or Elven (Elven Quest Trilogy), a young adult fantasy by C M Lloyd

Music[link]

• Eleven (Martina McBride album), the 11th studio album by American singer Martina McBride
• Eleven (22-Pistepirkko album) or Ele∀en, a 1998 album by Finnish band 22-Pistepirkko
• Eleven (Sugarcult album), a 1999 album by American band Sugarcult
• Eleven (B'z album), a 2000 album by Japanese band B'z
• Eleven (Harry Connick, Jr. album)
• Eleven (band), an American hard rock band
• Eleven (Serbian band), Serbian alternative rock band
• Eleven: A Music Company, an Australian record label
• Up to eleven, an idiom originated in the excessive volume setting
• "The Eleven", a song by the Grateful Dead
• "Eleven", a song on the Primus album Sailing the Seas of Cheese that is in 11/8 time
• 11 (The Smithereens album), an album by The Smithereens
• 11 (Bryan Adams album), an album by Bryan Adams
• "Eleven", a song by ¡Forward, Russia!
• "Eleven", a character description in book 1 Child of the Elves by C M Lloyd

Other uses[link]

• EleVen, a clothing range designed by tennis player Venus Williams
• Municipal Okrug 11, name of Ostrov Dekabristov Municipal Okrug of Vasileostrovsky District of St. Petersburg, Russia, until 2011
• 7-Eleven a convenience store in North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia
• MIT elEVEN
• Apollo 11, historic space mission which landed the first humans on the Moon
• A football team, so-called because of the number of players on the team
• Ocean's 11, a 1960 heist film, and its 2001 remake Ocean's Eleven

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Charlie Christian
Charles Henry Christian
Background information
Birth name	Charles Henry Christian
Born	(1916-07-29)July 29, 1916
Died	March 2, 1942(1942-03-02) (aged 25)
Genres	Swing, bebop, jazz, big band music
Occupations	Musician
Instruments	Guitar

Charles Henry "Charlie" Christian (July 29, 1916 – March 2, 1942) was an American swing and jazz guitarist.

Christian was an important early performer on the electric guitar, and is cited as a key figure in the development of bebop and cool jazz. He gained national exposure as a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra from August 1939 to June 1941. His single-string technique combined with amplification helped bring the guitar out of the rhythm section and into the forefront as a solo instrument. John Hammond ^[1] and George T. Simon ^[2] called Christian the best improvisational talent of the swing era. In the liner notes to the 1972 Columbia album Solo Flight: The Genius of Charlie Christian, Gene Lees writes that "many critics and musicians consider that Christian was one of the founding fathers of bebop, or if not that, at least a precursor to it".^[3]

Christian's influence reached beyond jazz and swing — in 1990 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Christian was raised in Oklahoma City and was one of many musicians who jammed along the city's "Deep Deuce" section on N.E. Second Street. In 2006 Oklahoma City renamed a street in its Bricktown entertainment district Charlie Christian Avenue.

Early life[link]

The Gibson ES-150, the first electric guitar played by Charlie Christian, equipped with the pickup that would later be named after him.

Christian was born in Bonham, Texas, but his family moved to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma when he was a small child. His parents were musicians and he had two brothers, Edward, born in 1906, and Clarence, born in 1911. All three sons were taught music by their father, Clarence Henry Christian. Clarence Henry was struck blind by fever, and in order to support the family he and the boys would work as buskers, on what the Christians called "busts." He would have them lead him into the better neighborhoods where they would perform for cash or goods. When Charles was old enough to go along, he first entertained by dancing.^[4] Later he learned guitar, inheriting his father's instruments upon his death when Charles was 12.^[5]

He attended Douglass School in Oklahoma City, and was further encouraged in music by instructor Zelia Breaux. Charles wanted to play tenor saxophone in the school band, but she insisted he try trumpet instead.^[5] Because he believed playing the trumpet would disfigure his lip, he quit to pursue his interest in baseball, at which he excelled.^[6]

In a 1978 interview with Charlie Christian biographer Craig McKinney, Clarence Christian said that in the 1920s and '30s Edward Christian led a band in Oklahoma City as a pianist and had a shaky relationship with trumpeter James Simpson. Around 1931, he took guitarist "Bigfoot" Ralph Hamilton and began secretly schooling the younger Charles on jazz. They taught him to solo on three songs, "Rose Room", "Tea for Two", and "Sweet Georgia Brown". When the time was right they took him out to one of the many after-hours jam sessions along "Deep Deuce", Northeast Second Street in Oklahoma City.

"Let Charles play one," they told Edward. "Ah, nobody wants to hear them old blues," Edward replied. After some encouragement, he allowed Charles to play. "What do you want to play?" he asked. All three songs were big in the early 1930s and Edward was surprised that Charles knew them. After two encores, Charles had played all three and "Deep Deuce" was in an uproar. He coolly dismissed himself from the jam session, and his mother had heard about it before he got home.^[7]

Charles fathered a daughter, Billie Jean Christian, born December 23, 1932, by Margretta Lorraine Downey of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. They never married. Billie Jean (Christian) Johnson died 19 July 2004.^[8]

Charles soon was performing locally and on the road throughout the Midwest, as far away as North Dakota and Minnesota. By 1936 he was playing electric guitar and had become a regional attraction. He jammed with many of the big name performers traveling through Oklahoma City including Teddy Wilson and Art Tatum. It was Mary Lou Williams, pianist for "Andy Kirk and His Clouds of Joy", who told record producer John Hammond about Charlie Christian.^[9]

National fame[link]

In 1939 Christian auditioned for John Hammond, who recommended him to bandleader Benny Goodman. Goodman was the fourth white bandleader to feature black musicians in his live band: the first was Jimmy Durante, for whom Achille Baquet, a light-skinned black clarinetist who could pass as white, played and recorded in Durante's Original New Orleans Jazz Band (1918–1920); the second was violinist Arthur Hand, who led the California Ramblers, which from 1922-1925 included light-skinned black trumpeter Bill Moore, who was billed as The Hot Hawaiian. The third was Ben Bernie, whose band from 1925-1928 also featured Bill Moore. Goodman became the fourth by bringing Teddy Wilson in on piano in 1935, and Lionel Hampton on vibraphone in 1936. Goodman hired Christian to play with the newly formed Goodman Sextet in 1939. It has been often stated that Goodman was initially uninterested in hiring Christian because the electric guitar was a relatively new instrument. Goodman had been exposed to the instrument with Floyd Smith and Leonard Ware among others, none of whom had the ability of Charlie Christian. There is a report of Goodman unsuccessfully trying to buy out Floyd Smith's contract from Andy Kirk. However, Goodman was so impressed by Christian's playing that he hired him instead.^[10]

There are several versions of the first meeting of Christian and Goodman on August 16, 1939. The encounter that afternoon at the recording studio had not gone well. Charles recalled in a 1940 Metronome magazine article, "I guess neither one of us liked what I played", but Hammond decided to try again — without consulting Goodman (Christian says Goodman invited him to the show that evening);^[11] he installed Christian on the bandstand for that night's set at the Victor Hugo restaurant in Los Angeles. Displeased at the surprise, Goodman called "Rose Room", a tune he assumed that Christian would be unfamiliar with. Unknown to Goodman, Charles had been reared on the tune, and he came in with his first chorus of about twenty, all of them different, all unlike anything Goodman had heard before. That version of "Rose Room" lasted forty minutes; by its end, Christian was in the band. In the course of a few days, Christian went from making $2.50 a night to making $150 a week.^[12]

Christian was placed in Goodman's new sextet, which included Lionel Hampton, Fletcher Henderson, Artie Bernstein and Nick Fatool. By February 1940 Christian dominated the jazz and swing guitar polls and was elected to the Metronome All Stars. In the spring of 1940 Goodman let most of his entourage go in a reorganization move. He retained Charlie Christian, and in the fall of that year Goodman led a sextet with Charlie Christian, Count Basie, longtime Duke Ellington trumpeter Cootie Williams, former Artie Shaw tenor saxophonist Georgie Auld and later drummer Dave Tough. This all-star band dominated the jazz polls in 1941, including another election to the Metronome All Stars for Christian. Johnny Guarnieri, who replaced Fletcher Henderson in the first sextet, filled the piano chair in Basie's absence.

In 1966, 24 years after his death, Christian was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame. In 1989, Christian became one of the first inductees into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame.

Style and influences[link]

Christian's solos are frequently referred to as "horn-like", and in that sense he was more influenced by horn players such as Lester Young and Herschel Evans^[13] than by early acoustic guitarists like Eddie Lang and jazz/bluesman Lonnie Johnson, although they both had contributed to the expansion of the guitar's role from "rhythm section" instrument to a solo instrument. Christian admitted he wanted his guitar to sound like a tenor saxophone.^[14] Belgian gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt had little influence on Christian, but he was obviously familiar with some of his recordings.^[15] Guitarist Mary Osborne recalled hearing him play Django's solo on "St. Louis Blues" note for note, but then following it with his own ideas.^[15] By 1939 there had already been electric guitar soloists—Leonard Ware, George Barnes, trombonist/composer ("Topsy") Eddie Durham had recorded with Count Basie's Kansas City Six, Floyd Smith recorded "Floyd's Guitar Blues" with Andy Kirk in March 1939, using an amplified lap steel guitar, and Texas Swing pioneer Eldon Shamblin was using amplified electric guitar with Bob Wills.

Guitarists who followed Christian and who were influenced by him include Oscar Moore (Nat King Cole trio), Les Paul, Tiny Grimes, Barney Kessel, Herb Ellis, Jimmy Raney, Tal Farlow, Kenny Burrell, Grant Green, Wes Montgomery, and Jim Hall. Tiny Grimes, who made several records with Art Tatum, can often be heard quoting Christian note-for-note.

Christian paved the way for the modern electric guitar sound that was followed by other pioneers, including T-Bone Walker, Eddie Cochran, Cliff Gallup, Scotty Moore, Franny Beecher, B.B. King, Chuck Berry, Carlos Santana and Jimi Hendrix. For this reason Christian was inducted in 1990 into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an "Early Influence".^[16]

Christian's exposure was so great in the brief period he played with Goodman that he influenced not only guitarists, but other musicians as well. The influence he had on "Dizzy" Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and Don Byas can be heard on their early "bop" recordings "Blue'n Boogie" and "Salt Peanuts". Other musicians, such as trumpeter Miles Davis, cite Christian as an early influence. Indeed, Christian's "new" sound influenced jazz as a whole. He reigned supreme in the jazz guitar polls up to two years after his death.^[17]

Bebop and Minton's Playhouse[link]

Charlie Christian was an important contributor to the music that became known as "bop" or "Bebop". Private recordings made in September 1939 in Minneapolis, Minnesota by Goodman aficionado Jerry Newhouse capture the newly hired Christian while on the road with Goodman and feature Goodman tenor sax man Jerry Jerome and then local bass man Oscar Pettiford. Taking multiple solos, Christian shows much the same improvisational skills later captured on the Minton's and Monroe's recordings in 1941, suggesting that he had already matured as a musician.^[18] The Minneapolis recordings include "Stardust", "Tea for Two" and "I've Got Rhythm", the latter a favorite piece of bop composers and jammers.

More of the unrestrained Christian is apparent in recordings of the partial Goodman Sextet made in March 1941. With Goodman and bassist Artie Bernstein absent, Christian and the rest of the Sextet recorded for nearly 20 minutes as the engineers tested equipment. Two recordings were released from that session years later: "Blues in B" and "Waiting for Benny", which showed hints of bop jam sessions. The free flow of these sessions contrasts with the more formal swing music recorded after Goodman had arrived at the studio. Other Goodman Sextet records that foretell bop are "Seven Come Eleven" (1939) and "Air Mail Special" (1940 and 1941).

An even more striking example is a series of recordings made at Minton's Playhouse, an after-hours club located in the Hotel Cecil at 210 West 118th Street in Harlem by Columbia student Jerry Newman on a portable disk recorder in 1941. Newman captured Christian, accompanied by Joe Guy on trumpet, Kenny Kersey on piano and Kenny Clarke on drums,^[19] stretching out far beyond what the confines of the 78 RPM record would allow. His work on "Swing to Bop", a later Esoteric Records company re-title of Eddie Durham's "Topsy," is an example of what Christian was capable of creating "off the cuff."

His use of tension and release, a technique employed by Lester Young, Count Basie^[20] and later bop musicians, is also present on "Stompin' at the Savoy", included among the Newman recordings. The collection also includes recordings made at Clark Monroe's Uptown House, another late-night jazz haunt in the Harlem of 1941 that include Oran "Hot Lips" Page. Other recordings include tenor sax man Don Byas. The Minton's recordings were long rumored to feature "Dizzy" Gillespie and Thelonious Monk, but that has since been proven untrue, although both were regulars at the jam sessions, with Monk a regular in the Minton's house band.^[19]

Kenny Clarke claimed that "Epistrophy" and "Rhythm-a-ning" were Charlie Christian compositions that Christian played with Clarke and Thelonious Monk at Minton's jam sessions. The "Rhythm-a-ning" line can be heard on "Down on Teddy's Hill" and behind the introduction on "Guy's Got To Go" from the Newman recordings, but it is also a line from Mary Lou Williams' "Walkin' and Swingin'".

Clarke said Christian first showed him the chords to "Epistrophy" on a ukulele.^[21] These recordings have been packaged under a number of different titles, including "After Hours" and "The Immortal Charlie Christian." While the recording quality of many of these sessions is poor, they show Christian stretching out much longer than he could on the Benny Goodman sides. On the Minton's and Monroe's recordings, Christian can be heard taking multiple choruses on a single tune, playing long stretches of melodic ideas with ease.^[22]

Christian was just as adept with understatement as well. His work on the Goodman sextet sides "Soft Winds", "Till Tom Special", and "A Smo-o-o-oth One", show his use of very few, well placed melodic notes. His work on the Sextet's recordings of ballads "Stardust", "Memories of You", "Poor Butterfly", "I Surrender Dear" and "On the Alamo" as well as his work on "Profoundly Blue" with the Edmond Hall Celeste Quartet (1941) show hints of what was later to be called "cool jazz".^[20][23] Although credited for very few, Christian composed many of the original tunes recorded by the Benny Goodman Sextet.^[24]

Health[link]

Proposed gravesite of Charlie Christian in Gates Hill Cemetery, Bonham, Texas, based on eyewitness accounts from the funeral taken by Christian biographer Craig McKinney.

In the late 1930s Christian had contracted tuberculosis^[25] and in early 1940 was hospitalized for a short period in which the Goodman group was on hiatus due to Benny's back trouble. Goodman was hospitalized in the summer of 1940 after the band's brief stay at Santa Catalina Island, California, where the group stayed when on the west coast.^[21] Christian returned home to Oklahoma City, in late July 1940 before returning to New York City in September 1940. In early 1941, Christian resumed his hectic lifestyle, heading to Harlem for late-night jam sessions after finishing gigs with the Goodman Sextet and Orchestra in New York City. In June 1941 he was admitted to Seaview, a sanitarium on Staten Island in New York City. He was reported to be making progress, and Down Beat magazine reported in February 1942 that he and Cootie Williams were starting a band.^[26]

After a visit that same month to the hospital by tap dancer and drummer Marion Joseph "Taps" Miller, Christian declined in health and died March 2, 1942. He was 25 years old. He was buried in an unmarked grave in Bonham, Texas, and a Texas State Historical Commission Marker and headstone were placed in Gates Hill Cemetery in 1994. The location of the historical marker and headstone has been disputed.

Discography[link]

As leader[link]

Although Christian never recorded professionally as a leader, compilations have been released of his sessions as a sideman where he is a featured soloist, of practice and warm-up recordings for these sessions, and some lower-quality recordings of Christian's own groups performing in nightclubs, by amateur technicians.^[27]

• Charlie Christian with the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra(Columbia lp CL652-195?)
• Solo Flight: The Genius of Charlie Christian (Columbia, 1972)
• Solo Flight (live performances as member of the Benny Goodman Sextet, Vintage Jazz Classics, 2003)
• Genius of the Electric Guitar (Columbia, 1939-1941 recordings)
• Guitar Wizard (LeJazz, 1993 Charly Holdings Inc.)
• Live At Minton's Playhouse 1941

As sideman[link]

Appearances on recordings by Ida Cox, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Fred Astaire, Eddy Howard, Edmond Hall, Metronome All Stars 1940-1941, Kansas City Six with Buck Clayton and Lester Young, Helen Forrest.

Filmography[link]

• 2005 Solo Flight: The Genius of Charlie Christian
• 2007 Charlie Christian- The Life & Music of the Legendary Jazz Guitarist (Grossman Guitar Workshop)

See also[link]

Music portal

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Broadbent, Peter (2002) Charlie Christian, Solo Flight - The story of the Seminal Electric Guitarist ISBN 978-1-872639-21-5 Hal Leonard, pub.
• Centlivre, Kevin (1994) "Interview with Jerry Jerome"
• Centlivre, Kevin (1999) "Revisiting Charlie Christian"
• Feather, Leonard (reprinted 1977) Inside Jazz Da Capo, pub. ISBN 0-306-80076-4
• Goins, Wayne E. and McKinney, Craig (2005) A Biography of Charlie Christian, Jazz Guitar's King of Swing ISBN 0-88946-426-X
• Lee, Amy (1940) "Charlie Christian Tried to Play Hot Tenor!" Metronome
• McKinney, Craig Charles Christian: Musician
• Savage, William W., Jr. (1983) Singing Cowboys and All That Jazz: A Short History of Popular Music in Oklahoma University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, pp. 48–51, ISBN 0-8061-1648-X
• Spring, Howard (1980) The Improvisational Style of Charlie Christian York University
• Valdes, Leo (1997) Solo Flight: The Charlie Christian Newsletter Leo Valdes, pub.

External links[link]

• Charlie Christian Photo Gallery
• Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture - Christian, Charlie
• Deep Deuce History and photos
• Charlie Christian Memorial at Find-a-Grave

Pain of Salvation
Pain of Salvation at the Sweden Rock Festival, 2008.
Background information
Origin	Eskilstuna, Sweden
Genres	Progressive metal, progressive rock.
Years active	1984−1991 (as Reality) 1991−present (as Pain of Salvation)
Labels	InsideOut Music
Associated acts	Crypt of Kerberos Q-krunkers from Hell The Flower Kings Programming Defaced Transatlantic
Website	painofsalvation.com
Members
Daniel Gildenlöw Gustaf Hielm Léo Margarit Daniel Karlsson Ragnar ZSolberg
Past members
Joakim Strandberg Mikael Pettersson Daniel Magdic Johan Langell Magnus Johansson Kristoffer Gildenlöw Fredrik Hermansson Johan Hallgren Simon Andersson

Pain of Salvation is a Swedish progressive rock band headed by Daniel Gildenlöw; the band's lyricist, chief composer, guitarist, and lead vocalist. Their sound is characterised by powerful, accentuated guitar work, broad vocal range, abrupt switching between heavy and calm passages, intense syncopation, and polyrhythmic experimentation. Another trademark of the band is that each album is a concept album. Some of the topics addressed in the band's albums include sexuality, war and its effect on family and humanity, environmental issues (such as nuclear power), the forming of the individual, and the nature of God, humankind, and existence.

Etymology[link]

The name "Pain of Salvation" was devised by Daniel Gildenlöw, whose intention was to incorporate the notion of balance, which he believed to be of vital significance, e.g. good and bad, light and dark, life and death; pain and salvation.

"I wanted a name that meant something, a name that was more than a cool expression. For me, Pain of Salvation has the meaning of balance. Taking the good with the bad. It is also a good expression in everyday use, when something does not go the way you planned; "well, that’s just the pain of salvation," to indicate that this is just a slight setback on an otherwise painless journey towards your goal." ^[1]

"The idea with the name is that everything has two sides, everything is in balance." ^[2]

"Imagine yourself exhausted in the middle of a desert... Sitting down will take away your pain, but it will kill you. The walk for water will hurt, but it may save your life."

"I formed my first band at eleven, I called it Reality. When I turned 15, I decided to change, because I did not the same as in the age of 11. I tried to come up with a new band name. It was during a math lesson, I was writing band names. I wrote Pain of Salvation and it stuck. I showed it to my classmate, who later became a member of the band, he said too long, nobody would remember that!" ^[3]

Biography[link]

Early days (1984-1996)[link]

In 1984, Daniel Gildenlöw (at the age of eleven) founded the band "Reality" in Eskilstuna, Sweden. One of the early members was Daniel Magdic, who would remain with the band until after the first album was eventually recorded in 1997. In 1987, Reality qualified to participate in the Swedish Annual Music Contest "Rock-SM" (this is the same contest that fellow Swedes Europe won in 1982, earning them international recognition in the early 80s). They were the youngest competitors ever to enter the competition and Daniel Gildenlöw also won the prize for "Best Vocalist".

1990 saw a number of line-up changes, including the addition of talented Johan Langell (then 14 years old) on drums; as the core composers Gildenlöw and Magdic found it difficult to fully implement their musical ideas with the current members. Also joining the band was Gustaf Hielm on bass guitar. Somewhat disillusioned and bored of the "Reality" moniker, Gildenlöw renamed the band to "Pain of Salvation" in 1991. For the next 3 years, the band achieved national success in several contests and competitions. Some of the songs performed during this era can be found on the earlier albums.

In 1994, Kristoffer Gildenlöw (Daniel’s younger brother) replaced Gustaf Hielm (who later went on to join fellow Swedish metal band Meshuggah) on the bass. This resulted in a steady group consisting of the Gildenlöws, Daniel Magdic and Johan Langell. The band entered a local studio soon after to record a demo, Hereafter, with a combination of old and new material. While they had recorded several tapes before, this was the first to be actually sent to a record company in the hope of procuring a record deal. This demo however was recorded without a keyboardist. To complete the line up (and sonic requirements) of the band, they began the search for one. It was through this Hereafter tape that Fredrik Hermansson got interested in the band and after an introduction to the band through a fellow student he got the invitation to do an audition. In the autumn of 1996, Fredrik Hermansson became the fifth member of the band.

First album recorded and released (1996-1997)[link]

Two of the first companies that the band sent their demo to were Marquee/Belle Antique (a record company in Japan/Asia) and Roasting House (a professional recording studio in Malmö, Sweden). In early 1997, they entered the Roasting House Studio to record their debut studio album, Entropia, which was released in Asia on the Marquee’s Avalon label in August 1997 to positive local reviews. As a result, Marquee decided to fly Daniel over to Tokyo, Japan in October for a week of promotional performances and interviews to the metal press. It was about this time that purchasing albums through online music stores was commonplace, and fans from around the world began to do so with Entropia. As a result, interest in Pain of Salvation grew around the world progressive metal scene, leading to another licensing deal – this time for Romania with SC Rocris Discs in late 1997.

The album was eventually released in Europe in 1999, when Pain of Salvation signed to major progressive music label InsideOut Music following the success of their second album One Hour by the Concrete Lake. It was also released in South America on Hellion Records in 1999.

Follow-up album and record label deal (1998-1999)[link]

Preparations for the band’s second album were somewhat disrupted by the departure of Daniel Magdic from the band prior to recording. The departure was due to Magdic's continuing disagreements with the others over committing to the increasing demands of the band as a result of their initial success. He still remains a friend of the band to this day. After a short audition period, Johan Hallgren was his initial replacement. Johan had played for a short period together with Daniel in the band Crypt of Kerberos. Johan was immediately involved in the recording process, facing the daunting tasks of learning all the new songs with extreme short notice. Indeed, because of the complexity of the guitar parts in the new material, Daniel Gildenlöw was prepared to play all the guitar parts himself. Hallgren surprised all (he learned the whole album in three weeks), however, and was able to play on the album as a full member of the band. This worked out so well that he was announced as Magdic’s official replacement in April 1998.

The resultant album, One Hour by the Concrete Lake, was released in Asia (once again on Avalon) in July 1998 with an even more positive reception than their debut album. It was immediately hailed as a classic masterpiece, receiving extensive attention from fans and magazines all around the world. It was described as heavier and darker than Entropia, and considered a much more mature effort, with every existing positive about the band focussed and improved on. The buzz about the band had well and truly spread to Europe by now, and the multitude of positive reactions was the catalyst for the band to be signed to major progressive music label InsideOut Music and later their American counterpart, InsideOut Music America.

During the South American release (once again on Hellion) in May 1999, the band embarked on a European tour supporting fellow progressive metal bands Threshold (U.K.) and Eldritch (Italy). They also played at their first ProgPower festival in Tilburg, The Netherlands on November 14, 1999.

Critical acclaim (2000-2003)[link]

After a short break to regroup, Pain of Salvation recorded their third album, The Perfect Element, part I in March to July 2000. Released in October 2000, the album garnered a huge response from media and fans all over the world. In support of the album, the band toured Europe again in September and October 2000, this time with Arena (UK). In February 2001 the band played their first show in the USA, as headliners of the famed ProgPower USA festival, with the likes of Symphony X and Evergrey. Later that month, they also paid a visit to Iceland.^{[citation needed]}

In late 2001, Pain of Salvation recorded their fourth album, Remedy Lane. It is remarkable in the fact that it was almost entirely written during a two-month period from August to September 2001 by Daniel Gildenlöw. Released in January 2002, it was also greeted with extensive praise from the progressive metal community, being hailed as their finest creation yet.^{[citation needed]} During the Remedy Tour, Pain of Salvation were invited as a special guest opener for Dream Theater.

Both albums (and the band's earlier catalogue) were now much more accessible to music listeners now that they were on a major label. They were hailed as bringing originality and diversity to the genre, which many followers had been considering quite stagnant.^{[citation needed]} They are often praised for their excellent conceptual cohesion.^{[citation needed]} The Perfect Element, part I is a work examining the events that form an individual as they move from adolescence through to adulthood. Scarsick, released in 2007, is The Perfect Element, part II, although not in name.^[4] Remedy Lane is a part-autobiographical, part-fictional tale of a period of Daniel Gildenlöw’s life dealing with the issues of love, lust and life. Both albums were once again recorded at Roasting House Studio in Sweden.

On May 12, 2003, Pain of Salvation performed an acoustic concert in their hometown of Eskilstuna before a crowd of 80 special guests. The concert was recorded and released as 12:5 in early 2004. It featured dramatically rearranged versions of the band’s past material, owning to Daniel Gildenlöw’s desire not to simply create a “Pain of Salvation: Unplugged” record. As a result, the band and fans consider the album as a stand-alone work, and not just a 'live album'. The album was widely applauded for its audacity in re-interpreting past material in such a way, though others found the new versions of favourite songs much less enjoyable.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] "BE" (2004-2005)

For the better part of 2003 and 2004, the band worked on their most serious undertaking to date: a concept album about the nature of existence of God and humankind. It was Daniel Gildenlöw who has been working on and off on it since 1996. The recording of the album was preceded by a number of live shows in Eskilstuna, where the band performed the album in its entirety. The shows were full productions; with costumes, stage props and screen projections. They also featured a nine-part orchestra, The Orchestra of Eternity, whom Gildenlöw had in mind while composing the music. As a result, the orchestra features prominently in the material, and is essential to its sound. After the conclusion of the shows, the material was tweaked and refined by Gildenlöw before the recording began in February 2004.

In September 2004, the band’s most ambitious album, "BE", was released. It was the first album to divide the fan-base in opinion, because of its musically experimental and philosophical nature; and perhaps also its lack of cohesive progressive metal pieces. It once again featured The Orchestra of Eternity, and included a memorable song whereby the band had set up a phone line for fans from around the world to ring and leave their message on “God’s answering machine”. There was an overwhelming response from fans who laughed, cried and poured their soul into their messages. The messages were collated and presented with a peaceful instrumental accompaniment, resulting in what the band considers to be one of their most touching tracks they have ever recorded.^[5]

[edit] Scarsick and the "Road Salt Sequence" (2005-present)

Daniel Gildenlöw in Cairo 2007.

Pain of Salvation has not played in the United States since 2004, when Daniel Gildenlöw expressed his refusal to take part in the US policy of fingerprinting all out-of-country visitors, as well as his contempt for the Bush administration. He feels it infringes his democratic rights and personal integrity.^[6] On 22 January 2009 he announced his support for the newly elected President Barack Obama and said the band will be lifting their embargo on the country, but reaffirmed his position on the fingerprinting policy.

On 21 February 2006, Kristoffer Gildenlöw was asked to leave the band for not being able to attend rehearsals, since he lived in Holland and the band lived in Sweden. Kristoffer has a solo album planned for the future, as well as a side project called Dial, born with the release of "Synchronized" in 2007.

The next studio album Scarsick was released on January 22, 2007, despite having been leaked early in December 2006. The album met mixed reviews criticizing its different approach to the band's music,^[7] being significantly more band oriented than the previous album "BE". Interviews with Daniel revealed that Scarsick is a continuation of The Perfect Element, part I, using similar themes touched in that album. Because of Kristoffer's departure, Daniel played bass in the studio on the album.^[8] The band toured Europe, and a few shows outside of Europe, including one in Egypt. A touring bassist was recruited, and on March 10, 2007 he was made a full member of the band and is credited so on the second live DVD recorded. The concert featured on their second live DVD, Ending Themes (On the Two Deaths of Pain of Salvation) was performed in Amsterdam and it features a cover of the popular Leonard Cohen song Hallelujah. Following numerous delays, the DVD was released on March 24, 2009.

On April 29, 2007, an official statement was published on the official site announcing that Johan Langell was departing because of his desire to become a full-time parent and husband. He stayed with the band to finish the rest of the tour off before leaving completely. He also stated that he might remain on close terms with the band in order to teach drum parts to his replacement. On October 6, 2007, during the show at the "Motstøy" festival in Notodden, it was announced that Johan Langell's replacement will be Leo Margarit. Both drummers attended the show and Leo entered the band by doing a 3 minute drumsolo in the end of the song "Nightmist". Similarly, late in 2008, Simon Andersson left the band and was added to the graveyard section of the official website. An official statement regarding this incident was released by Simon indicating his decision to leave was understood by the rest of that band, further stating it would allow him more time on his own side projects as well as recuperation from the previous tour in support of Scarsick.

On February 13, 2009, it was announced on Myspace that Pain of Salvation would take part in Dream Theater's "Progressive Nation 2009" tour beginning in the summer.^[9] It would have been their first tour of America in more than 5 years. However, the recent bankruptcy of SPV forced both Pain of Salvation and Beardfish to back out of the tour because of a lack of financial backing.^[10]

In a recent interview with Inside the Pain, Daniel Gildenlöw stated that the new album was planned for release sometime in mid August, during their now cancelled Progressive Nation tour appearance, however this release date was not likely. On November 1, 2008, the band debuted a new song, "Mortar Grind", from their upcoming studio album and EP. According to the same interview with Inside the Pain, it was revealed that the new album would feature 2 CDs, 22 songs in a concept similar in style to that of Remedy Lane. The music written is 'different to anything the band has ever done before' featuring experimental and psychedelic style performances.^[11]

In a recent update on the band's official website, it was stated that the final steps in the completion of the new album were put on hold because of the bankruptcy of SPV.^[12] Recently however it was announced that InsideOut Music was picked up by Century Media, allowing progress on the album to continue.

On October 5, 2009, Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater announced that Pain of Salvation would be their supporting act for a tour of Australia. ^[13]

In December 2009, it was confirmed that the title track of the new double album, "Road Salt," would be an entry in the 2010 edition of Melodifestivalen, Sweden's national final for the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest.^[14] The band performed during the first semi-final and qualified for the runners-up broadcast, on march 6th on Swedish national television. However, they did not progress to the finals, losing to Pernilla Wahlgren by a slim margin.^[14]

On February 19, 2010, Daniel Gildenlöw revealed on his Facebook page that the name of the first part of the Road Salt albums to be released later that year would be "Road Salt 1: Ivory". He also posted a brief lyrical excerpt from a song on the album called "Curiosity". The actual release dates were set for May 17 in most of Europe and June 8 in the U.S. The release includes both a standard edition and limited edition with a bonus track and extended versions of 'No Way' and 'Road Salt'.^[15] On May 9, Road Salt One leaked on the internet.

Pain of Salvation made their first tour of India in January with performances at Manfest organised by Indian Institute of Management(IIM), Lucknow on 22 January and at Saarang, organised by Indian Institute of Technology(IIT) Madras on 29 January.^[16]

On March 9, 2011, Daniel Gildenlöw announced on his Facebook page, that 'Road Salt Two' would be mixed and mastered in mid-May 2011, and released in September 2011. It is said to have a darker sound than Road Salt One. He also revealed the titles of several songs set to appear on the album: new, remixed versions of "Mortar Grind", "Conditioned", "Healing Now", "1979", "To The Shoreline", "Through The Distance", "Softly She Cries", "In The Physics of Grindlock" and "The Deeper Cut". Moreover, he announced that the video to 'Where it Hurts' will be released globally in mid-March.^[17]

On October 21, 2011, the band announced that Johan Hallgren would be leaving the band at the end of the year, citing his need to remain in Sweden with his growing family.^[18] On November 8, 2011, a message to fans by Daniel Gildenlöw noted that Fredrik Hermansson would also be leaving the band at the conclusion of the current tour.^[19]

On December 23, 2011, Daniel announced that Daniel Karlsson is the new replacement for Fredrik.^[20] On January 5, 2012, Pain of Salvation announced that Icelandic guitarist Ragnar Zolberg will be replacing Johan Hallgren as their guitarist.^[21]

Also on December 23, 2011 the band announced that Gustaf Hielm would return on bass guitar.

Band members[link]

Current members

• Daniel Gildenlöw - lead vocals, guitar (1984−present)
• Ragnar Zolberg - guitar, lead & backing vocals (2012–present)
• Gustaf Hielm - bass guitar, backing vocals (1992–1994, 2011–present)
• Daniel Karlsson - keyboards, backing vocals (2011–present), bass guitar (2011)
• Léo Margarit - drums, backing vocals (2007−present)

Former members

• Daniel Magdic - guitar, backing vocals (1986−1997)
• Johan Hallgren - guitar, lead & backing vocals (1998−2011)
• Joakim Strandberg - bass guitar (1984–1990)
• Magnus Johansson - bass guitar (1990–1992)
• Kristoffer Gildenlöw - bass guitar, cello, backing vocals (1994−2006)
• Simon Andersson - bass guitar, backing vocals (2007–2008)
• Fredrik Hermansson - keyboards, synthesizers (1996−2011)
• Mikael Pettersson - drums (1984–1989)
• Johan Langell - drums, percussion, backing vocals (1989−2007)

Touring

• Per Schelander - bass guitar, backing vocals (2008–2010)

Timeline[link]

id:Vocals value:blue legend:Vocals,Guitar 
id:Guitar value:green legend:Guitar
id:Bass value:red legend:Bass
id:Keyboard value:purple legend:Keyboard
id:Drums value:gray(0.45) legend:Drums
id:Lines value:black legend:Albums

at:06/01/1996 color:black layer:back
at:08/01/1997 color:black layer:back
at:07/21/1998 color:black layer:back
at:10/31/2000 color:black layer:back
at:01/15/2002 color:black layer:back
at:10/12/2004 color:black layer:back
at:01/30/2007 color:black layer:back
at:05/17/2010 color:black layer:back
at:09/26/2011 color:black layer:back

bar:Daniel text:"Daniel Gildenlöw"
bar:Magdic text:"Daniel Magdic"
bar:Johan text:"Johan Hallgren"
bar:Ragnar text:"Ragnar Zolberg"
bar:Magnus text:"Magnus Johansson"
bar:Gustaf text:"Gustaf Hielm"
bar:Kristoffer text:"Kristoffer Gildenlöw"
bar:Simon text:"Simon Andersson"
bar:Per text:"Per Schelander"
bar:Fredrik text:"Fredrik Hermansson"
bar:D2 text:"Daniel Karlsson"
bar:Langell text:"Johan Langell"
bar:Leo text:"Léo Margarit"

width:10 textcolor:black align:left anchor:from shift:(10,-4)
bar:Daniel from:01/01/1991 till:end color:Vocals
bar:Magdic from:01/01/1991 till:12/01/1997 color:Guitar
bar:Johan from:04/01/1998 till:10/28/2011 color:Guitar
bar:Ragnar from: 01/05/2012 till:end color:Guitar
bar:Magnus from:01/01/1991 till:06/01/1992 color:Bass
bar:Gustaf from:06/01/1992 till:06/01/1994 color:Bass
bar:Gustaf from:12/23/2011 till:end color:Bass
bar:Kristoffer from:06/01/1994 till:02/21/2006 color:Bass
bar:Simon from:03/10/2007 till:09/01/2008 color:Bass
bar:Per from:09/01/2008 till:01/01/2011 color:Bass
bar:D2 from:10/01/2011 till:12/23/2011 color:Bass
bar:D2 from:12/23/2011 till:end color:Keyboard
bar:Fredrik from:09/01/1996 till:12/12/2011 color:Keyboard
bar:Langell from:01/01/1991 till:10/06/2007 color:Drums
bar:Leo from:10/06/2007 till:end color:Drums

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

EPs[link]

• Linoleum (2009)

Live albums[link]

• 12:5 (2004)
• "BE" (Original Stage Production) (2005)
• Ending Themes (On the Two Deaths of Pain of Salvation) (2009)

Singles[link]

• Ashes (2000)
• Road Salt (2010)
• Sisters (2010)
• Where It Hurts (2011)

Demos[link]

• Hereafter (1996)
• Repent (91-92)
• Unknowing (1993)

Videography[link]

• "BE" (Original Stage Production) (2005, live DVD)
• Ending Themes (On the Two Deaths of Pain of Salvation) (2009, live DVD)

References[link]

1. ^ Dutch Progressive Rock Page, 7 August 1999
2. ^ painofsalvation.8k.com, mirrored at the Internet Archive
3. ^ Pain Of Salvation Interjú | KRONOS MORTUS Metal Webzine
4. ^ From an interview with Daniel Gildenlow in early 2007
5. ^ From page "XIX" of the liner notes booklet for BE
6. ^ From the news entry of the official site on August 10, 2005
7. ^ "PAIN OF SALVATION Scarsick music reviews and MP3". Progarchives.com. http://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=13659. Retrieved 2011-07-01. 
8. ^ "‪Pain of salvation Daniel Gildenlow scarsick concept P 2‬‏". YouTube. 2007-01-22. http://youtube.com/watch?v=f6Q0Br0A-y0. Retrieved 2011-07-01. 
9. ^ Progressive Nation 2009 Tour Page
10. ^ Progressive Nation 2009 North American Tour - Lineup Change
11. ^ "[PoS] Le nouvel album sera un DOUBLE album ! **SPOILER** • Inside The Pain". Insidethepain.com. http://www.insidethepain.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2088. Retrieved 2011-07-01. 
12. ^ "Pain of Salvation site is down!". Blog.painofsalvation.com. http://www.blog.painofsalvation.com/?p=838. Retrieved 2011-07-01. 
13. ^ "Pain Of Salvation confirmed as DT's Special Guests in Australia!". Mikeportnoy.com. http://www.mikeportnoy.com/forum/m2423154.aspx. Retrieved 2011-07-01. 
14. ^ ^{a b} Repo, Juha (2009-11-30). "Sweden reveals artist names for Melodifestivalen". ESCToday. http://www.esctoday.com/news/read/14555. Retrieved 30 November 2009. 
15. ^ "walk with me". 10 March 2010. http://www.painofsalvation.com/. Retrieved 13 March 2010. 
16. ^ Posted on 27 October 2010 by MetalIndia Magazine (2010-10-27). "‘Pain Of Salvation’ to tour India in January". MetalIndia Magazine. http://www.metalindiamagazine.com/news/pain-of-salvation-to-tour-india-in-january. Retrieved 2011-07-01. 
17. ^ "Facebookpost by Daniel Gildenlöw". http://www.facebook.com/danielgildenlow.public/posts/194657187224200. Retrieved 11 March 2011. 
18. ^ "Johan Hallgren leaves the band". http://www.painofsalvation.com/2011/johan-leaves-pos/. Retrieved 21 October 2011. 
19. ^ "Frederik leaves the band". http://www.facebook.com/notes/pain-of-salvation/a-message-from-daniel/10150925679065355. Retrieved 8 November 2011. 
20. ^ "D2". http://www.painofsalvation.com/2011/meet-our-new-keyboard-player/. Retrieved 24 December 2011. 
21. ^ "Ragnar Zolberg on guitar". http://www.painofsalvation.com/2011/presenting-the-guitarist//. Retrieved 5 January 2012. 
22. ^ "Les charts français - Recherche pour: Pain of Salvation > Album". http://lescharts.com. http://lescharts.com/search.asp?cat=a&search=pain+of+salvation&cat=a. Retrieved 2009-09-22. 
23. ^ "Swedish charts portal - Search for: Pain of Salvation > Album". http://swedishcharts.com. http://swedishcharts.com/search.asp?cat=a&search=pain+of+salvation&cat=a. Retrieved 2009-09-22. 
24. ^ "Musiikintuottajat - Tilastot - Suomen virallinen lista - Artistit". http://www.ifpi.fi/tilastot/virallinen-lista. http://www.ifpi.fi/tilastot/virallinen-lista/artistit/pain+of+salvation. Retrieved 2011-08-28. 
25. ^ "Road Salt Two" album cover artwork and tracklisting unveiled.

• Pain of Salvation. Pain of Salvation's official website. (Retrieved September 2005 onwards)
• Foreword Brazil. Pain of Salvation's official Brazilian fan club.
  • Biography . (History information)
• InsideOut Music. Pain of Salvation at InsideOut Music. (Retrieved September 2005 onwards)
• InsideOut Music America. Pain of Salvation at InsideOut Music America. (Retrieved September 2005 onwards)
• The Pavement: Winter Edition 2005 nr.4 Interview with Fredrik Hermansson, pages 14–15

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pain of Salvation

• Pain of Salvation's official website
• 0ne Hour by the Concrete Lake review on Lebmetal.com

Saul Bass (May 8, 1920 – April 25, 1996) was a graphic designer and filmmaker, perhaps best known for his design of film posters and motion picture title sequences.

During his 40-year career Bass worked for some of Hollywood's greatest filmmakers, including Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger, Billy Wilder, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese. Amongst his most famous title sequences are the animated paper cut-out of a heroin addict's arm for Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm, the credits racing up and down what eventually becomes a high-angle shot of the United Nations building in Hitchcock's North by Northwest, and the disjointed text that races together and apart in Psycho.

Bass designed some of the most iconic corporate logos in North America, including the AT&T "bell" logo in 1969, as well as AT&T's "globe" logo in 1983 after the breakup of the Bell System. He also designed Continental Airlines' 1968 "jetstream" logo and United Airlines' 1974 "tulip" logo which became some of the most recognized airline industry logos of the era.

Early life[link]

Saul Bass was born on May 8, 1920, in the Bronx, New York, to Eastern European Jewish immigrant parents. He graduated from James Monroe High School in the Bronx and studied part-time at the Art Students League in Manhattan until attending night classes with György Kepes at Brooklyn College.^[1] He began his time in Hollywood during the 1940s doing print work for film ads, until he collaborated with filmmaker Otto Preminger to design the film poster for his 1954 film Carmen Jones. Preminger was so impressed with Bass's work that he asked him to produce the title sequence as well. This was when Bass first saw the opportunity to create something more than a title sequence, but to create something which would ultimately enhance the experience of the audience and contribute to the mood and the theme of the movie within the opening moments. Bass was one of the first to realize the creative potential of the opening and closing credits of a movie.

Film title sequences[link]

Bass became widely known in the film industry after creating the title sequence for Otto Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm (1955). The subject of the film was a jazz musician's struggle to overcome his heroin addiction, a taboo subject in the mid-'50s. Bass decided to create a controversial title sequence to match the film's controversial subject. He chose the arm as the central image, as the arm is a strong image relating to drug addiction. The titles featured an animated, white on black paper cut-out arm of a heroin addict. As he expected, it caused quite a sensation.

For Alfred Hitchcock, Bass provided effective, memorable title sequences, inventing a new type of kinetic typography, for North by Northwest (1959), Vertigo (1958), working with John Whitney, and Psycho (1960). It was this kind of innovative, revolutionary work that made Bass a revered graphic designer. Before the advent of Bass’s title sequences in the 1950s, titles were generally static, separate from the movie, and it was common for them to be projected onto the cinema curtains, the curtains only being raised right before the first scene of the movie.^[2]

Bass once described his main goal for his title sequences as being to ‘’try to reach for a simple, visual phrase that tells you what the picture is all about and evokes the essence of the story”.^[3] Another philosophy that Bass described as influencing his title sequences was the goal of getting the audience to see familiar parts of their world in an unfamiliar way. Examples of this or what he described as “making the ordinary extraordinary” can be seen in Walk on the Wild Side (1962) where an ordinary cat becomes a mysterious prowling predator, and in Nine Hours to Rama (1963) where the interior workings of a clock become an expansive new landscape.^[4]

He designed title sequences for more than 40 years, and employed diverse film making techniques, from cut-out animation for Anatomy of a Murder (1958), to fully animated mini-movies such as the epilogue for Around the World in 80 Days (1956), and live action sequences. His live action opening title sequences often served as prologues to their films and transitioned seamlessly into their opening scenes. These “time before” title sequences either compress or expand time with startling results. The title sequence to Grand Prix (1966) portrays the moments before the opening race in Monte Carlo, the title sequence to The Big Country (1958) depicts the days it takes a stage coach to travel to a remote Western town, and the opening montage title sequence to The Victors (1963) chronicles the twenty seven years between WWI and the middle of WWII, where the film begins.

Toward the end of his career, he was rediscovered by James L. Brooks and Martin Scorsese who had grown up admiring his film work.^[5] For Scorsese, Saul Bass (in collaboration with his wife Elaine Bass) created title sequences for Goodfellas (1990), Cape Fear (1991), The Age of Innocence (1993), and Casino (1995), his last title sequence. His later work with Martin Scorsese saw him move away from the optical techniques that he had pioneered and move into the use of computerized effects. Bass’s title sequences featured new and innovative methods of production and startling graphic design.

In some sense, all modern opening title sequences that introduce the mood or theme of a film can be seen as a legacy of Saul Bass's innovative work. In particular, though, title sequences for some recent movies and television series, especially those whose setting is during the 1960s, have purposely emulated the graphic style of his animated sequences from that era. Some examples of title sequences that pay homage to Bass’s graphics and animated title sequences are Catch Me If You Can (2002)^[6], X-Men: First Class (2011)^[7], and the opening to the AMC series Mad Men.^[8]

Selected film title sequences and respective dates[link]

Logos and other designs[link]

Bass was responsible for some of the best-remembered, most iconic logos in North America, including both the Bell Telephone logo (1969) and successor AT&T globe (1983). Other well-known designs were Continental Airlines (1968), Dixie (1969) and United Airlines (1974). Later, he would produce logos for a number of Japanese companies as well.

Selected logos by Saul Bass and their respective dates (note that the links shown point to articles on the entities themselves, and not necessarily to the logos):

An analysis of a sample of Bass’s corporate logos in 2011 found them to have an unusual longevity. The most common cause of the demise of a Bass corporate logo (in the selection analyzed) was the demise of the company, rather than a corporate logo redesign. The average lifespan of a Bass logo is more than 34 years, and counting.^[11]

Movie posters[link]

Saul Bass designed emblematic movie posters that transformed the visuals of film advertising. Before Bass’s seminal poster for The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), movie posters were dominated by depictions of key scenes or characters from the film, often both juxtaposed with each other. Bass’s posters, however, typically developed simplified, symbolic designs that visually communicated key essential elements of the film. For example, his poster for a Man with a Golden Arm, with a jagged arm and off-kilter typography, starkly communicates the protagonist's struggle with heroin addition. Bass's iconic Vertigo (1958) poster, with its stylized figures sucked down into the nucleus of a spiral vortex, captures the anxiety and disorientation central to the film. His poster for Anatomy of a Murder (1959), featuring the silhouette of a corpse jarringly dissected into seven pieces, makes both a pun on the film’s title and captures the moral ambiguities within which this court room drama is immersed.

He created some of his best known posters for films directed by Otto Preminger, Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, and Stanley Kubrick among others. His last commissioned film poster was created for Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993), but it was never distributed^[12]. His poster work spanned five decades and inspired numerous other poster and graphic designers. Bass's film posters are characterized by a distinctive typography and minimalistic style.

Selected posters by Saul Bass, and their respective dates.

1950s[link]

Love in the Afternoon poster designed by Bass.

• Carmen Jones (1954)
• The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)
• Edge of the City (1956)
• Storm Center (1956)
• Love in the Afternoon (1957)
• Saint Joan (1957)
• Bonjour Tristesse (1958)
• The Big Country (1958) (style b poster)
• Vertigo (1958)
• Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

1960s[link]

• Exodus (1960)
• The Magnificent Seven (1960) (design not used)
• One, Two, Three (1961)
• Advise & Consent (1962)
• The Cardinal (1963)
• In Harm's Way (1964)
• Bunny Lake is Missing (1965)
• The Firemen's Ball (1967)
• The Two of Us (1967)
• Why Man Creates (1968)
• Very Happy Alexander (1969)

1970s[link]

• Such Good Friends (1971)
• Rosebud (1975)
• Bass on Titles (1978)
• Brothers (1977)
• Notes on the Popular Arts (1977)
• The Human Factor (1979)

1980s and 1990s[link]

• The Shining (1980)
• The Solar Film (1980)
• Return from the River Kwai (1989)
• Schindler's List (1993) (undistributed poster)

He received an unintentionally backhanded tribute in 1995, when Spike Lee's film Clockers was promoted by a poster that was strikingly similar to Bass's 1959 work for Preminger's film Anatomy of a Murder. Designer Art Sims claimed that it was made as an homage, but Bass regarded it as theft.^[13] Many film posters have been considered to be homages to Saul Bass’s posters. Some recent examples include, the theatrical release poster for Burn After Reading (2008) which incorporates Bass’s typography and style of figurative minimalism^[14], and a poster for Precious (2009) which includes elements from several of Bass’s posters, including Anatomy of a Murder.^[15] The cover art for the White Stripes' single The Hardest Button to Button is clearly inspired by the Bass poster for The Man with the Golden Arm.

In addition to movie posters, Bass designed numerous posters for film festivals, and several magazine, book, and album covers. He also designed five Academy Award Presentation posters and the Student Academy Award for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.^[16] In 1962 he illustrated his only children’s book, Henri’s Walk to Paris, written by Lenore Klein.^[17]

Filmmaker[link]

During the 1960s, Bass was asked by directors and producers not only to produce title sequences for their films, but also to visualize and storyboard key scenes and sequences within them. Bass has the unusual credit of “visual consultant” or “pictorial consultant” on five films. For Spartacus (1960), Bass as “visual consultant” designed key elements of the gladiator school and storyboarded the final battle between slaves and Romans. John Frankenheimer, the director of Grand Prix (1966), had Bass storyboard, direct, and edit all but one of the racing sequences for his film. For West Side Story (1961) Bass filmed the prologue, storyboarded the opening dance sequence, and created the ending title sequence.^[18]

It is Bass’s credited role as “pictorial consultant” for Alfred Hitchcock on Psycho (1960), however, that has caused some controversy. Bass claimed that he participated in directing the highlight scene of Psycho, the tightly edited shower-murder sequence, though several on set at the time (including star Janet Leigh) disputed his contention of "direction". However, it can be argued that said dispute was simply semantic in nature with Bass's use of the term "directing" reflecting his own perspective on the "directorial" value of his influential graphic contribution to the scene, while the position of Leigh and the others on set was based on the scene being literally directed by Hitchcock as the film director ultimately in charge of all artistic decisions.

The research of several film scholars on Hitchcock's production of Psycho validates the claim that Bass in his capacity as a graphic artist did indeed have a significant influence on the visual design and pacing of that famous scene. Hitchcock had asked Bass to produce storyboards for the shower-murder scene and for some other scenes in the film. For this, Bass received a credit as Pictorial Consultant as well as Title Designer. Janet Leigh told Donald Spoto that “the planning of the shower scene was left up to Saul Bass, and Hitchcock followed his storyboard precisely. Because of this . . . [the shooting] went very professionally,”^[19] and she told Stephen Rebello that “Mr. Hitchcock showed Saul Bass’s storyboards to me quite proudly, telling me in exact detail how he was going to shoot the scene from Saul’s plans”.^[20]

Bill Krohn has noted that Bass's 48 story board panels for the scene introduced all the key aspects of the final shower-murder scene, namely the fact that the attacker would be seen as a silhouette, the shower curtain torn down, a close-up of the shower head from below, a high angle shot of the murder scene with the curtain rod used as a barrier and the famous shot of the transition from the drainage hole of the bathtub to Marion Crane's dead eye which as Krohn notes is reminiscent of Bass's iris titles for Vertigo.^[21] Krohn also concludes that Bass did not literally direct the shower-murder scene, proving Hitchcock's presence on the set throughout the shooting of that scene conclusively.^[21]

Bass introduced the idea of using a montage of fast cuts and tight framing to render a violent, bloody murder as an impressionistic and nearly bloodless one. Hitchcock felt uncertain about Bass’s conception of the scene fearing that audiences might not accept such a stylized and quickly cut sequence. In an interview with film historian Pat Kirkham, Bass recalled, “Having designed and storyboarded the shower sequence, I showed it to Hitch. He was uneasy about it. It was very un-Hitchcockian in character. He never used that kind of quick cutting; he loved the long shot”^[22].

To convince Hitchcock that the scene would work as planned, eight days before shooting of the final shower scene, Bass used a newsreel camera and Janet Leigh’s stand-in Marli Renfro to shoot footage on the set to plan the shots in more detail. Working with Hitchcock's editor George Tomasini, he edited this footage following the storyboards to show Hitchcock how the scene could work. In the end, Hitchcock gave his approval but, according to Kirkham, made two additions: a spray of blood on the chest of Marion Crane/Janet Leigh as she slides down the tiles, and a close-up of her belly getting stabbed.^[23]

In 1964, Bass directed a short film titled The Searching Eye shown during the 1964 New York World's Fair, coproduced with Sy Wexler. He also directed a short documentary film called Why Man Creates which won an Academy Award Oscar in 1968. An abbreviated version of that film was broadcast on the first episode of the television newsmagazine 60 Minutes, on September 24 of that year. In 2002, this film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".^[24] Saul Bass co-directed with his wife Elaine Bass several other short films, two of which were nominated for Academy Award Oscars; Notes on the Popular Arts in 1977, and The Solar Film in 1979, the latter for which Robert Redford was the executive producer.

In 1974, he made his only feature length film as a director, the visually splendid though little-known science fiction film Phase IV, a "Quiet, haunting, beautiful, [...] and largely overlooked, science-fiction masterwork".^[25]

Quotes[link]

This section is a candidate to be copied to Wikiquote using the Transwiki process.

"My initial thoughts about what a title can do was to set mood and the prime underlying core of the film's story, to express the story in some metaphorical way. I saw the title as a way of conditioning the audience, so that when the film actually began, viewers would already have an emotional resonance with it."^[26]

"Design is thinking made visual."

"There is nothing glamorous in what I do. I'm a working man. Perhaps I'm luckier than most in that I receive considerable satisfaction from doing useful work which I, and sometimes others, think is good."^[27]

"Symbolize and summarize."^[28]

See also[link]

	Design portal
	Biography portal
	United States portal
	Film portal

• Motion graphic
• Kinetic typography
• Paul Rand
• Richard Amsel
• Jack Davis
• Frank Frazetta
• The Brothers Hildebrandt
• Tom Jung
• Frank McCarthy
• Bob Peak
• Drew Struzan
• Howard Terpning

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Kirkham, Pat and Jennifer Bass (2011). Saul Bass: A Life in Film & Design. London: Laurence King. ISBN 978-1-85669-752-1.
• Tomislav Terek (2001). Saul Bass on Titles: Film Titles Revealed. Defunkt Century. ISBN 1-903792-00-2.

External links[link]

• Saul Bass at the Internet Movie Database
• Saul Bass at Find a Grave
• Saul Bass on the Web
• Saul Bass in the Looniverse
• Bio-film & resources on Saul Bass
• Title sequences from Saul Bass (videos & commentary)
• Titles designed by Saul Bass (still sequences & commentary)
• Pitch video for 1969 Bell System logo, uniform, and vehicle redesign