John Legend & The Roots, live (recording studio), 2010
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Baby Huey & the Babysitters, 1971 (The Baby Huey Story: The Living Legend, produced by Curtis Mayfield and released, posthumously [the singer died, at 26, in 1970], on Curtom Records)
I must have seen Baby Huey & the Babysitters at least a half-dozen times. In the late ’60s they played the Chicago area teen clubs. Tight rhythm section, punchy horns, soulful vocals—what could be, at 16, a finer date?
(Yeah, the fact that I’m posting four tracks by this guy shows how much his music, which I just encountered recently, has been getting under my skin.)
(Originally posted on 11/23/09.)
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[Russell’s] various distinctions—folkie, art-music songwriter and improviser, dance-club maven—seem incoherent until you hear several of his records. When musicians get angry about being categorized by critics, I usually feel frustrated: readers, after all, want to know what the record sounds like. With Russell, I take the musicians’ angle. Just listen to it and you’ll understand.
For Arthur, there was no cachet to being eclectic. Rather, he played across genre because it would have required a colossal and entirely counterproductive effort on his part to stick to one sound. . . . Drifting into an ethereal, gravity-defying zone, Arthur had come to embody the interconnectivity of music.
What a joy it is to hear an improvising musician whose mind moves as fast as her fingers.
Geri Allen, live, Atlanta, 2009
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art beat
In 1932 I saw a photograph by Martin Munkacsi of three black children running into the sea, and I must say that it is that very photograph which was for me the spark that set fire to the fireworks . . . and made me suddenly realize that photography could reach eternity through the moment. It is only that one photograph which influenced me. There is in that image such intensity, spontaneity, such a joy of life, such a prodigy, that I am still dazzled by it even today.
Martin Munkacsi, Three Boys at Lake Tanganyika, c. 1930
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radio: space is the place
Tonight, from 6-9 p.m. (EST), WKCR-FM(broadcasting from Columbia University) will be featuring recordings of live performances by Sun Ra & His Solar Arkestra at Soundscape, a New York loft space (West 52nd St. and 10th Ave.) that presented live music from 1979 to 1983.
Christian Wolff (composer, piano, melodica; with Larry Polansky, guitar; Robyn Schulkowsky, vibraphone, miscellaneous percussion; Robert Black, bass; Joey Baron, drums), “Quintet,” live (performance followed by conversation), New York (Roulette), 12/12/09
Yesterday he sang gospel; today he sings soul music.
O.V. Wright
“I Feel Alright,” live, Memphis, 1975
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“I’d Rather Be Blind, Crippled, And Crazy” (Back Beat Records, 1973)
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“Drowning On Dry Land” (Back Beat Records, 1973)
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“A Nickel And A Nail” (Back Beat Records, 1975)
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Soul is church. Just changing ‘Jesus’ to ‘baby.’ That’s all it is.
—O.V. Wright
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Somehow, someway, O.V. Wright continues to be a mystery. Though he spent his entire life in Memphis, recorded with [producer] Willie Mitchell and was a contemporary of everyone from Otis Redding to Al Green, Wright remains a largely unheralded figure.
Hardcore soul enthusiasts and R&B historians have consistently ranked him among the most evocative and powerful singers of all time, yet his troubled life and tragically early death at the age of 41 in 1980 have consigned him to the margins of music history.
“I remember Willie Mitchell saying, after we lost O.V. — and I never will forget this — Willie said he was the greatest singer that was ever on the planet,” recalls drummer Howard Grimes.
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Wright was revered by his peers, including a young Al Green. “Al used to come in and try and listen to O.V. record,” recalls Willie Mitchell, laughing. “And O.V. would see him and say, ‘Al, what you doing here? Get out of my session!'”
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“He just had more church in him,” says Howard Grimes. “That’s what touched people.”
[Otis] Clay recalls being in the audience when Wright turned a Miami nightclub into a revival meeting. “Man, he whipped that audience into a frenzy like I’ve never seen,” says Clay. “You would’ve thought he was a preacher passing out blessings. He’d say, ‘If you love the blues, come up and shake my hand.’ And, man, people lined up, just like they would in church. That was typical O.V.”
“I’m Going Home To Live With God” (Back Beat Records, 1973; produced by Willie Mitchell)
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music—evidence of the existence of God?
[M]usic is and always has been the one thing that makes me a believer. You can say, ‘Oh, I’m an agnostic. I don’t believe in God.’ OK, fine, but then explain music to me.
Having trouble playing clips smoothly—without annoying little hiccups? One way to avoid this, as I’ve mentioned before, is to let a clip load completely before you play it (start the clip, then stop it, then start it again after the bar at the bottom has filled in all the way). Changing browsers may help, too. On my Mac, for instance, clips often play better on Safari than Firefox.
To these ears, this is just inches shy of insufferable—too cute, too precious, too fey. But those inches make all the difference. As it is, I find it beguiling.
Clare and the Reasons, “Wake Up (You Sleepyhead),” 2009
For those who’re interested in such genealogical details (and are old enough to remember), Clare is the daughter of Geoff Muldaur.
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reading table
Utterly unbelievable, incontrovertibly real: his poems, at their best, have the associative logic of a dream.
music clip of the day 
