Think you can listen to these guys without moving?
Just try.
Staff Benda Bilili
Live, Democratic Republic of Congo (Kinshasa)
“Na Lingui Yo,” c. 2007
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
“Polio,” c. 2007
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
Singing, playing, talking, 2011
Vodpod videos no longer available.Life thickens as you get older, becoming more layered. The other night, for instance, listening to Mad Professor dub Bob Marley at a club on Chicago’s south side (Reggie’s, State near Cermak), I found it hard not to think of another night over thirty years ago, of another club on the other side of town (Quiet Knight, Belmont near Clark, now gone), of hearing Bob Marley not dubbed but live.
Bob Marley and the Wailers, “Trenchtown Rock”
Live, Chicago (Quiet Knight), 1975
Dub shows aren’t an everyday thing in Chicago, so last night, despite the weather (rain) and weariness (from traveling to see a client in prison), I ventured out to a club to catch this guy. A show like this isn’t just an aural experience: each beat of the bass vibrates your ribcage.
Mad Professor (AKA Neil Fraser, born 1955, Guyana)
Live, London, 2011
Vodpod videos no longer available.******
Live remix, Bob Marley and the Wailers, “Lively Up Yourself,” c. 2008
Vodpod videos no longer available.passings
Wade Mainer, singer, banjo player, April 21, 1907-September 12, 2011
“I’ll Be a Friend to Jesus” (1936)
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
Singing, playing, talking (c. 2004)
Part 1
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
Part 2
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
Part 3
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
lagniappe
What we was playin’ in the ’30s was true country music—no electric instruments, no copyrights. Something’d happen and someone’d write a song about it—nobody owned it, nobody’d know who wrote it. The music just told a story.
Mahogani Music Promotional Video, Detroit (2010)
Vodpod videos no longer available.Yeah, the interplay between these two is awfully cliche.
But there’s a lot to like here: the sounds,* the colors, the composition, the sense of place.
I dig the camera-shy dog, too.
*Joe Simon, “Theme from Cleopatra Jones” (1973)
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lagniappe
art beat
Yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago (after an oral argument in the nearby federal court of appeals, in a drug case involving 20 kilos of cocaine—from the sordid to the sublime):
Vasily (AKA Wassily) Kandinsky
Painting with Green Center, 1913
*****
Improvisation No. 30 (Cannons), 1913
Never heard of this guy?
You’re not alone.
But for serious mental illness, he would have been a big star.
James Carr, singer, June 13, 1942-January 7, 2001
Live, “You Got My Mind Messed Up”
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
Live, “Pouring Water on a Drowning Man”
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
“The Dark End of the Street” (D. Penn & C. Moman), Goldwax, 1967
Vodpod videos no longer available.What may be my favorite moment in this track is one that’s easy to miss; a throwaway, it comes at 1:37—the muted, fleeting “huhh.” The whole welter of emotions Carr brings to this performance—anxious, defiant, rueful, resigned—can be heard in this single syllable.
passings
DJ Mehdi, DJ & producer, January 20, 1977-September 13, 2011
“I Am Somebody” (feat. Chromeo), 2007
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
Live (with Busy P), Ireland (Dublin), 2008
#1
Vodpod videos no longer available.
***
#2
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
#3
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
Remix, Architecture in Helsinki, “In Case We Die,” 2006
Vodpod videos no longer available.Miles Davis Quintet (MD, trumpet; Wayne Shorter, tenor saxophone; Herbie Hancock, piano; Ron Carter, bass; Tony Williams, drums), “Footprints” (W. Shorter), live, Sweden, 1967
Vodpod videos no longer available.Time for just one note? 3:34. (Shorter’s entire solo is a marvel [1:54-3:54]: it’s as intimate and delicate as a dream.)
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lagniappe
reading table
just the other day
we said goodbye . . .
dewy grave—Kobayashi Issa, 1790s (trans. David G. Lanoue)
What a joy to find, as I did yesterday, new sounds that provide so much pleasure.
Starlicker (Rob Mazurek, cornet; Jason Adasiewicz, vibraphone; John Herndon, drums), “Horseshoes,” live, Iowa (Dubuque), 2011
Vodpod videos no longer available.two takes
Here’s a very different piece by Steve Reich—one I first heard, in a New York performance by Reich’s ensemble, 40 years ago. At the time, the only way he could get his music heard was to play it himself.
Steve Reich, Drumming (1971), excerpts
So Percussion, live, Baltimore (Johns Hopkins University), c. 2009
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
Steve Reich (wearing cap) with members of Ensemble Modern
Live, Germany (Cologne), 2009
More? Here. And here. And here.
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lagniappe
All music theory refers to something that has already happened, but if it is taken as a prescription, or worse a manifesto, heaven help you.
music clip of the day 