Friday, August 2nd
Fela!
Funmilayo Afrobeat Orquestra, Seun Kuti, Egypt 80, “Upside Down” (Fela Kuti), live, published April 4, 2024
music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Category: Afrobeat
2023
Monday, October 16th
sounds of New York
Being & Becoming (Peter Evans [trumpets, compositions], Joel Ross [vibraphone, electronics], Nick Jozwiak [bass, electronics], Michael Ode [drums]), “Malibu,” live, New York, 9/10/23
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
radio
Today, in celebration of the birthday of Nigerian Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti (1938-1997), it’s all Fela all day at WKCR (Columbia University).
2022
Monday, January 10th
alone
This I could listen to all day.
Tony Allen (1940-2020, drums), live (studio), London, 2019
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Oak Park, Ill.
2020
Saturday, May 2nd
passings
Tony Allen, drummer, August 12, 1940–April 30, 2020
Today, remembering him, we revisit some old posts.
8/15/18
like nobody else
Tony Allen (drums), “Wolf Eats Wolf,” 2017
*****
9/23/15
Perhaps the greatest drummer ever.
Tony Allen—three takes.
Recording studio, 2009
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Paris, 2015
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Istanbul, 2015
*****
3/3/15
what you simply cannot do
Listen to this drummer without feeling lighter, livelier.
Tony Allen (drums, vocals) & Band, live, Luxembourg, 2011
*****
9/22/12
Questlove (:10-) & Tony Allen (1:25-), live, Paris, 2011
What a contrast. Questlove, focusing on power and momentum, pushes the beat. Tony lies behind it, skips ahead, lies back again, favoring suppleness and elasticity.
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
2019
Tuesday, December 31st
sounds of Nigeria and Chile
Newen Afrobeat, “Upside Down” (F. Kuti), live, Chile (Santiago), 2015
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lagniappe
random sights
this morning, Oak Park, Ill.
2019
Wednesday, August 14th
sounds of Nigeria and Chile
Newen Afrobeat feat. Seun Kuti (vocals) and Cheick Tidiane Seck (keyboards), “Opposite People” (F. Kuti), live (studio), Chile (Santiago), 2016
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lagniappe
reading table
Should we have stayed at home, / wherever that may be?
—Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979), from “Questions of Travel”
2017
Wednesday, October 11th
drum festival
day three
Tony Allen (drums, vocals) & Band, live, Luxembourg, 2011
2016
Monday, June 20th
what’s new
Afro-Haitian Experimental Orchestra (Tony Allen, drums, et al.)
“Bade Zile,” 2016
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lagniappe
reading table
We don’t want him thinking too much.
—Cubs pitcher John Lackey on rookie catcher Wilson Contreras’s first start tonight, following last night’s home run in his first big-league plate appearance—on the first pitch
2014
Monday, March 3rd
what you simply cannot do
Listen to this drummer without feeling lighter, livelier.
Tony Allen (drums, vocals) & Band, live, Luxembourg, 2011
2011
Friday, 8/19/11
sounds of Nigeria
Fela Kuti, live (filmed by Ginger Baker), Nigeria (Calabar), 1971
Vodpod videos no longer available.
More? Here.
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lagniappe
art beat: yesterday at Chicago’s Art Institute
Oda Kazuma, Catching Whitebait at Nakaumi, Izumo (1924)
*****
Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1953-54
*****
reading table
. . . life, that storm before the calm.
—Wislawa Szymborska, from “Negative” (trans. Clare Cavanagh & Stanislaw Baranczak, Monologue of a Dog [2006])
music clip of the day 