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Category: bass

2012

Monday, 1/30/12

Henry “Red” Allen (trumpet), with Coleman Hawkins (tenor saxophone), Vic Dickenson (trombone), Pee Wee Russell (clarinet), Rex Stewart (cornet), Danny Barker (guitar), Nat Pierce (piano), Milt Hinton (bass), Papa Jo Jones (drums), “Wild Man Blues,” live (TV Broadcast, The Sound of Jazz), 1957

All-star jam sessions often fizzle. Not this one. What makes this so good? A lot of it, I think, has to do with saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, who takes the first solo after trumpeter Red Allen states the melody. Right from the beginning (1:27-) it’s apparent that Hawkins isn’t just going through the motions. He plays, throughout, with great concentration and conviction, not wasting a moment. This inspires everyone; you can see it in their faces (1:44-47, 1:55-58, 2:03-08, 2:39-44). He gives the others a lot to live up to—and they do.

(Yo, Randy—thanks for the tip!)

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2012

Friday, 1/27/12

The 1960s—a decade of relentless experimentation, bold innovation, of searching, always, for something new, something true.

Freddie and the Dreamers, “Little Bitty Pretty One,” “A Little You”
Live, London, 1965

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lagniappe

reading table

Last night I had a dream. I was in France. Paris was again falling to the Germans, but it had become such a habit that one had to look closely to see that anyone really cared. I arrived in Paris (from the front, I think, but there wasn’t much of one) went to a party, where I was surrounded by acquaintances. They became distant and shadowy when I approached them. Suddenly I saw you and gave you a tremendous hug. You moved to another table. I said: ‘I know where there are a couple of good French restaurants.’ You said: ‘They’re all French here.’

—Robert Lowell, Letter to Elizabeth Bishop, 6/14/1953,
in The Letters of Robert Lowell (Saskia Hamilton ed., 2005)

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2012

Wednesday, 1/25/12

trying to teach white folks

This Is Ska! (1964)

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lagniappe

 found words

Real Messages from Heaven

—book title (Books-A-Million, 144 S. Clark St., Chicago)

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2012

Tuesday, 1/24/12

If you’re looking for sunshine, you’ll have to go elsewhere.

This is one of the saddest, darkest, most chilling things I know.

Nina Simone, “Black Is The Color Of My True Love’s Hair”

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lagniappe

reading table

[L]ife needs a lot of imaginative fixing, since it regularly fails to provide us with wild adventure and comfortable closure. ‘In life,’ Proust wrote in a notebook, ‘novels don’t finish.'”

—Michael Wood, “At the Movies,” London Review of Books, 1/5/12

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2012

Monday, 1/23/12

Yesterday we left off in 1977; let’s fast-forward 33 years.

Von Freeman (tenor saxophone), with Mike Allemana (guitar), Matt Ferguson (bass), Michael Raynor (drums); “Lester Leaps In,” live, Chicago (New Apartment Lounge, 75th St.), 2010 

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lagniappe

This year, as I’ve mentioned before, Von was awarded, along with bassist Charlie Haden, singer Sheila Jordan, trumpeter Jimmy Owens, and drummer Jack DeJohnette, an NEA (National Endowment of the Arts) Jazz Masters Fellowship—“the highest honor that our nation bestows on jazz artists.” Here’s the NEA’s video tribute.

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2012

Friday, 1/20/12

passings

Johnny Otis, December 28, 1921-January 17, 2012, singer, songwriter, piano player, bandleader, disc jockey, TV host, etc.

“Willie and the Hand Jive” (The Johnny Otis Show), c. late 1950s

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lagniappe

Genetically, I’m pure Greek. Psychologically, environmentally, culturally, by choice, I’m a member of the black community.

***

Society wants to categorize everything, but to me it’s all African-American music. The music isn’t just the notes, it’s the culture—the way Grandma cooked, the way Grandpa told stories, the way the kids walked and talked.

—Johnny Otis

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2012

Monday, 1/16/12

The other night my son Alex took me—this was my Christmas present—to see this guy at a small concert hall on the north side of Chicago (Old Town School of Folk Music). We’d last seen him together 20 years ago, in 1992, at a little club not far from where we live (FitzGerald’s). Alex wasn’t even five years old. It was an early evening set, part of a big Fourth of July festival. The night was stormy. The power went out. He played by candlelight.

 Alejandro Escovedo (1951-), singer, songwriter, guitarist, bandleader

“Anchor” (A. Escovedo & C. Prophet)
Live, Austin, Tx., 2010

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“Always a Friend” (A. Escovedo & C. Prophet)
Live (with Bruce Springsteen), Asbury Park, N.J., 2010

***

“Tender Heart” & “Street Songs” (A. Escovedo & C. Prophet)
Live, Austin, Tx., 2010

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2012

Friday, 1/13/12

only rock ’n roll

The Dirtbombs, “Ode to a Black Man” (P. Lynott), live

Seattle, 2008

***

New York, 2008

 

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2012

Tuesday, 1/10/12

What you want, sometimes, is to lose yourself, even if only briefly, in beauty.

Leo Janacek (1854-1928), String Quartet No. 1, “The Kreutzer Sonata,” excerpt (arr. Tognetti), Australian Chamber Orchestra

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lagniappe

random thoughts

When you’re young you want to find yourself; when you’re old you want to lose yourself.

*****

reading table

Variations for Two Pianos

for Thomas Higgins, pianist

by Donald Justice

There is no music now in all of Arkansas.
Higgins is gone, taking both his pianos.

Movers dismantled the instruments, away
Sped the vans. The first detour untuned the strings.

There is no music now in all of Arkansas.

Up Main Street, past the cold shopfronts of Conway,
The brash, self-important brick of the college,

Higgins is gone, taking both his pianos.

Warm evenings, the windows open, he would play
Something of Mozart’s for his pupils, the birds.

There is no music now in all of Arkansas.

How shall the mockingbird mend her trill, the jay
His eccentric attack, lacking a teacher?

Higgins is gone, taking both his pianos.
There is no music now in all of Arkansas.

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2012

Saturday, 1/7/12

Roy Hargrove Quintet,* “Strasbourg/Saint Denis,” live, Paris, 2008

What better way to begin the new year than with live music, which is what I did last Sunday (with my wife Suzanne and older son Alex), catching these guys at Chicago’s Jazz Showcase, where they played an ebullient set for the overflow crowd.

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lagniappe

reading table

In January baseball lives in the imagination.

Now he was stuck at this ramshackle ballpark between a junkyard and an adult bookstore on the interstate outside Peoria.

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“The shortstop is a source of stillness at the center of the defense. He projects this stillness and his teammates respond.”

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When your moment came, you had to be ready, because if you fucked up, everyone would know whose fault it was. What other sport not only kept a stat as cruel as the error but posted it on the scoreboard for everyone to see?

—Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding (2011)

*****

*RH, trumpet; Justin Robinson, alto saxophone; Gerald Clayton, piano; Danton Boller, bass; Montez Coleman, drums

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