looking back Today, celebrating our 300th post, we revisit a few favorites. ********** 3/12/10 Both Chicago blues artists. Both guitar players. Both influenced by other kinds of music. Musical personalities? They could hardly be more different. Buddy Guy, “Let Me Love You Baby,” live ***** Fenton Robinson, “Somebody Loan Me A Dime,” live, 1977 *** [...]
Archive for June 2010
Thursday, 7/1/10
06/30/2010Wednesday, 6/30/10
06/30/2010The other night, after falling asleep, my older son Alex (now 22) had an unexpected visitor—this guy showed up and began to play. Vijay Iyer Trio (VI, piano; Marcus Gilmore, drums; Stephan Crump, bass) “Galang,” recording session (Historicity), New York (Systems Two Studios), 2009 ***** “Questions of Agency,” live, New York (The Stone), 2007 ***** [...]
Tuesday, 6/29/10
06/29/2010Some folks talk sports when they get their hair cut. Rachael and I talk music. And invariably I walk out of there not only with shorter hair but bigger ears, having heard about someone from this 20-something stylist* that, walking in, I knew nothing about—like these guys, for instance. The Books, “Enjoy Your Worries, You [...]
Monday, 6/28/10
06/28/2010Muscular, unadorned, direct: his playing conjures the old Chicago, when there was no Millennium Park, no flowers blooming in the middle of the street, no dining al fresco (unless you had nowhere else to eat). Fred Anderson, tenor saxophonist, co-founder of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), club owner (Velvet Lounge), March [...]
Sunday, 6/27/10
06/27/2010Two minutes not enough? Do what I just did—play it three times. Five Blind Boys of Alabama (featuring Clarence Fountain), “Too Close to Heaven,” live (TV broadcast), 1960s ********** lagniappe Five Blind Boys of Alabama, “Send It On Down” (1969)/mp3 This is another track from The Widow’s Might, the wonderful DVD—nearly 700 (!) gospel songs [...]
Saturday, 6/26/10
06/26/2010replay: a clip too good for just one day Performances like this usually fall somewhere between disappointing and disastrous. So many things can—and usually do—go wrong when you take a bunch of folks who’re used to leading their own bands and throw them together onstage. People trip all over each another; flash trumps feeling. But [...]
Friday, 6/25/10
06/25/2010The other day, as I waited for a train at an underground station in downtown Chicago, an older black guy started singing this song, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar, and at that moment everything—this song, this singer, this place—seemed all of a piece and I was no longer waiting. Curtis Mayfield (with David Sanborn, alto [...]
Thursday, 6/24/10
06/23/2010Greatest prison band of all time? No contest. Who could beat the one that Art Pepper and this guy—both followed Charlie Parker down the path of heroin addiction—led in the 1960s at San Quentin? Frank Morgan (alto saxophone, with Claude Black, piano; Clifford Murphy, bass; Sean Dobbins, drums), “Well You Needn’t,” live, Ohio (Toledo), 2006 [...]
Wednesday, 6/23/10
06/22/2010You could listen to his music, and nothing else, every day for the rest of your life and never touch bottom. Bach, Chaconne in D minor for solo violin (Partita for Violin No. 2 [BWV 1004])/Gidon Kremer (violin), live Another take? Here.
Tuesday, 6/22/10
06/22/2010Wealthiest state in the nation? If music were money, it might be this. Nathan Abshire (accordion), “Ma Negresse” (AKA “Pine Grove Blues”) Take 1 With The Balfa Brothers (Dewey Balfa, fiddle), live, Louisiana (Dedans le Sud de la Louisiane [1974]) ***** Take 2 Live, Louisiana (Mamou [Fred's Lounge]), 1976 ********** lagniappe mail Thanks, Richard, for [...]
