music clip of the day

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Category: bass

2011

Tuesday, 2/8/11

three takes

Twenty inches of snow.

Fifty-mile-an-hour winds.

Thunder, lightning.

When the weather’s this bitter, shouldn’t the songs be too?

She wait till it got nine below zero . . .

Sonny Boy Williamson II (AKA Aleck “Rice” Miller), “Nine Below Zero”

Live (introduced by Memphis Slim; with Otis Spann, piano; Matt Murphy, guitar; Willie Dixon, bass; Billy Stepney, drums), Europe (Germany), 1963

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Recording (with Otis Spann, piano; Robert Jr. Lockwood & Luther Tucker, guitars; Willie Dixon, bass; Odie Payne, drums), Chess Records, Chicago, 12/14/60

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Recording (with Elmore James, guitar; Willie Love, piano; Cliff Givens, bass; Joe Dyson, drums), Trumpet Records, Jackson, Mississippi, 12/4/51

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Three Below Zero?

Seven Below Zero?

Ten Below Zero?

Sonny Boy nailed it with nine.

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2011

Monday, 2/7/11

You weren’t there Saturday (neither was I); but, hey, we’re here now.

North Mississippi Allstars (Luther [guitar] & Cody [drums] Dickinson [sons of the wonderful Jim Dickinson]), “Let It Roll,” “Ain’t No Grave,” live, Atlanta (Criminal Records), 2/5/11

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lagniappe

Keys to the Kingdom (new album)

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*****

reading table

Country Fair

If you didn’t see the six-legged dog,
It doesn’t matter.
We did, and he mostly lay in the corner.
As for the extra legs,

One got used to them quickly
And thought of other things.
Like, what a cold, dark night
To be out at the fair.

Then the keeper threw a stick
And the dog went after it
On four legs, the other two flapping behind,
Which made one girl shriek with laughter.

She was drunk and so was the man
Who kept kissing her neck.
The dog got the stick and looked back at us.
And that was the whole show.

—Charles Simic

Simic reads this here, beginning at 2:08:

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2011

Saturday, 2/5/11

three takes

I’ve got a band you should listen to . . .

—my (23-year-old) son Alex

Smith Westerns, “Tonight”

Live, Swarthmore College (Pennsylvania), 2010

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Live, Chicago, 2010

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Recording (Smith Westerns), 2009

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More Alex picks?

Here. And here. And here. And here.

And here. And here. And here.

And here. And here.

And here.

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2011

Friday, 2/4/11

fringe dress festival (cont’d)

Wanda Jackson, live (TV broadcast [Town Hall Party]), 1958

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2011

Thursday, 2/3/11

Music, like people, comes in all kinds. Some is easy to embrace, some thorny. I wouldn’t want to live without either.

Milton Babbitt, May 10, 1916-January 29, 2011

About Time, Alan Feinberg, piano

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String Quartet No. 2, Composers Quartet

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lagniappe

His music can be playful, too.

Semi-Simple Variations, The Bad Plus

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*****

If you know anybody who knows more popular music of the ’20s or ’30s than I do, I want to know who it is. I grew up playing every kind of music in the world, and I know more pop music from the ’20s and ’30s, it’s because of where I grew up. We had to imitate Jan Garber one night; we had to imitate Jean Goldkette the next night. We heard everything from the radio; we had to do it all by ear. We took down their arrangements; we stole their arrangements; we transcribed them, approximately. We played them for a country club dance one night and for a high school dance the next.

—Milton Babbitt

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2011

Wednesday, 2/2/11

How many musicians are so at home, and give so much pleasure,
in so many styles?

Marc Ribot, guitar

Border Music, with David Hidalgo (Los Lobos, Latin Playboys)

Live (with Anthony Coleman, organ; Brad Jones, bass; Cougar Estrada, drums; Fabian Hevia, percussion), Australia (Sydney), 6/2/10

“Choserita Plena” (Marc Ribot)

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“Chinese Surprize” (David Hidalgo)

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*****

Live (with Rob Burger, keyboards; Greg Cohen, bass; Cougar Estrada, drums; with guests Juan Medrano Cotito, cajon, and Hugo Bravo, congas),
Germany, 11/10/09

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More? Here. And here. And here.

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2011

Monday, 1/31/11

Roy Eldridge, January 30, 1911-February 26, 1989

No you, no me.

—Dizzy Gillespie

“I Can’t Get Started,” live (TV broadcast), 1958

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“After You’ve Gone,” 1937

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“Wabash Stomp,” 1937

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“Let Me Off Uptown” (Gene Krupa Orchestra with Anita O’Day), 1942

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lagniappe

radio Roy Eldridge

WKCR-FM’s centennial birthday celebration, mentioned yesterday, continues until midnight.

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2011

Friday, 1/28/11

Today MCOTD celebrates its 500th post. When this started, I thought I might eventually run out of material. But what I’ve found is the opposite: the more you hear, the more there is to hear.

Percy Sledge, “When A Man Loves A Woman,” live (TV broadcast), c. 1966

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lagniappe

reading table

Haiku

That was fast.
I mean life.

—Ron Padgett

 

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2011

Thursday, 1/27/11

two takes

Charlie Louvin, July 7, 1927-January 26, 2011

“If I Could Only Win Your Love” (Ira & Charlie Louvin)

Emmylou Harris & Charlie Louvin, live (TV broadcast), mid-80s

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Louvin Brothers, 1958

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lagniappe

He really changed the world of music, Charlie did. I know that, for me, hearing the Louvin Brothers brought me that fierce love of harmony.

—Emmylou Harris

*****

Louvin Brothers, “I Don’t Believe You’ve Met My Baby,” live (TV broadcast),
c. 1955

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*****

I can remember my brother and I singing together when I was 5 and he was 8 years old. He already knew how, and he was teaching me.

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I’m the biggest harmony lover in the world. If a song’s worth singing you ought to put harmony on it.

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Show business is all I really know how to do. I would like for that to be the last thing I do.

—Charlie Louvin

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2011

Tuesday, 1/25/11

three takes

Is this—the new cover—great?

Maybe, maybe not.

No matter—I, uh (to dip into the aging hipster’s lexicon), dig it.

“Is This Love” (Bob Marley)

Corinne Bailey Rae

Take 1: recording, 2010

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Take 2: live, Los Angeles, 2010

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Bob Marley

Take 3: live, Santa Barbara, 1979

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More Bob Marley? Here.

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