Peter Brötzmann, reed player, composer, bandleader
German Blues, performances 1999-2002, interview 2000
You can have the blues even if you’re German . . .
—Peter Brötzmann
**********
lagniappe
found words: AOL Headlines
Autistic Cheerleader Inspires Her Squad
*****
Kayaker Drowns After Swan Attack
two takes
“Honky Tonk Man” (J. Horton, et al.)
Dwight Yoakam
Live, mid-1980s
*****
Johnny Horton
Recording (Billboard Hot Country Singles, #9), 1956
**********
lagniappe
reading table
Hank Williams . . . was essentially the first rock star. He was a hillbilly singer, but he was a rock star. As Chet Atkins said, the year that Elvis hit, it ruined country music. Because they had rural America and southern America’s teenage audience. And then they couldn’t keep them. Elvis had changed everything.
***
I was a Monkees kid. For a ten-year-old like myself, the Monkees were a cultural access point that the Beatles weren’t. I was an oldest kid, teaching myself, and the Beatles were a bit beyond my grasp. Television delivers the Monkees to me in a different way; A Hard Day’s Night was not on TV in 1965. . . . The Monkees . . . came inside my living room, and there was a familiarity that allowed me to really understand what this new thing was. I had the first two Monkees albums, and I couldn’t have gotten a better education, retrospectively, in songwriting, when you think about it, than listening to Neil Diamond, Carole King, Boyce and Hart compositions. The world in two-and-a half to three minutes.
***
I had the jeans, the boots . . . There was a whole Hud element to that cowboy culture that I knew that could be introduced, the Route 66 Americana, not the Nashville Dixie country. Beyond James Dean, beyond Giant. This Route 66 Corvette cowboy. So let’s just call it that—it’s beyond Cadillac Cowboy. It’s Corvette cowboy.
—Dwight Yoakam (in Don McLeese, Dwight Yoakam: A Thousand Miles From Nowhere [2012])
The tree of country music has lots of eccentric branches.
The Handsome Family, “My Friend” (2009)
**********
lagniappe
reading table
The Everyday Enchantment of Music
by Mark Strand
(Almost Invisible [2012])
A rough sound was polished until it became a smoother sound, which was polished until it became music. Then the music was polished until it became the memory of a night in Venice when tears of the sea fell from the Bridge of Sighs, which in turn was polished until it ceased to be and in its place stood the empty home of a heart in trouble. Then suddenly there was sun and the music came back and traffic was moving and off in the distance, at the edge of the city, a long line of clouds appeared, and there was thunder, which, however menacing, would become music, and the memory of what happened after Venice would begin, and what happened after the home of the troubled heart broke in two would also begin.
*****
Happy Birthday, Billie!
Happy (75th) Birthday, Merle!
Merle Haggard, live
“Lonesome Fugitive,” Buck Owens Ranch Show, 1966
***
“Working Man Blues,” Austin City Limits, 1978
***
“Today I Started Loving You Again,” with Tammy Wynette, England (Wemberly), 1988
Welcome to the maelstrom.
Miles Davis Group,* live, Berlin, 1973
Part 1: Turnaroundphrase
***
Part 2: Turnaroundphrase, cont.; Tune in 5
*MD, trumpet; David Liebman, saxophone; Pete Cosey, guitar, percussion; Reggie Lucas, guitar; Michael Henderson, bass; Al Foster, drums; Mtume, percussion.
**********
lagniappe
reading table
Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth,
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.Last night as I slept,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that it was God I had
here inside my heart.—Antonio Mochado (1875-1939), “Last Night As I Was Sleeping” (translated from Spanish by Robert Bly)
One singer’s garbage is another’s gold.
Nina Simone, “Ain’t Got No/I Got Life” (adapted from Hair)
Live, New York (Harlem Cultural Festival), 1969
**********
lagniappe
yesterday
Listening to the radio, where they were talking about post-war modernist architecture, I learned a new term for people my age: “mid-century.”
When we last saw Miles, playing in Germany in 1967, he was wearing a suit and tie. Here, two years later, his wardrobe is headed in a new direction. So is his music.
Miles Davis Quintet,* live, France (Antibes), 1969
“Milestones,” “Footprints,” “’Round Midnight”
*MD, trumpet; Wayne Shorter, tenor and soprano saxophones; Chick Corea, electric piano; Dave Holland, bass; Jack DeJohnette, drums.
Willie Neal Johnson & The Gospel Keynotes
“Just For Me,” live
“Well, all right?” Gospel singers often follow a song, immediately, with a question. This opens a performance up, welcoming anyone who wants to come in, believer or not.
only rock ’n’ roll
The Cramps, live
California State Mental Hospital (Napa), 1978
