the other night
Just a week after hearing vibist Jason Adasiewicz’s Sun Rooms trio there, my older son Alex (home for the holidays) and I went back to the Hideout, a small club on Chicago’s north side, to hear these guys.
DKV Trio (Hamid Drake, drums; Kent Kessler, bass; Ken Vandermark, reeds), live, Chicago (Hideout), 12/28/11
more favorites from the past year
Wild Flag, live, SXSW (Austin, Texas), 3/11
“Romance” (Mellow Johnny’s Bike Shop)
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“Future Crimes” (IFC Crossroads House)
Someday an all-female band will seem no more remarkable than an all-male one.
(Originally posted 10/24/11.)
*****
She’s going to be a big star someday.
Nneka, live
Vodpod videos no longer available.(Originally posted 2/15/11.)
When I was little, I would go into Chicago to hear live music—Peter, Paul & Mary, Kingston Trio, Beach Boys—with my father. Then, as a teenager, I’d go into the city with my brother Don to hear the Velvet Underground and the MC5, the Who, Tim Hardin and Tim Buckley, Muddy Waters. Now I make these trips with my sons. The other night, for instance, my older son Alex (now 24 and home for the holidays) and I went to the Hideout, a small club on Chicago’s north side, not far from where I once went with my father (now gone) and my brother (now hundreds of miles away), to hear this guy.
Jason Adasiewicz’s Rolldown (JA, vibraphone; Josh Berman, cornet; Aram Shelton, alto saxophone; Jason Roebke, bass; Frank Rosaly, drums), “Hide,” live, c. 2008
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lagniappe
reading table
No, the human heart
Is unknowable.
But in my birthplace
The flowers still smell
The same as always.—Ki no Tsurayuki (872-945; trans. Kenneth Rexroth)
only rock ’n roll
Happy Refugees, “What’s Your Appeal”
Live, New York (Cake Shop), 12/10/11
More? These guys recently did a live studio performance at WFMU-FM (The Cherry Blossom Clinic with Terre T), which can be heard here.
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lagniappe
art beat: Tuesday at the Art Institute of Chicago (after a hearing at the nearby federal court building)
George Inness (1825-1894), Early Morning, Tarpon Springs (1892)
two takes
Rock ’n roll, like blues, is for old folks too.
Dick Dale (guitar, 1937-), “Nitro”
Live (radio broadcast, KEXP-FM [Seattle]), 12/11/09
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Recording and Video, 1993
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lagniappe
I make my guitar scream with pain or pleasure or sensuality. It makes people move their feet and shake their bodies. That’s what music does.
Janis Joplin, “Get It While You Can” (J. Ragovoy)
Live, TV broadcast (The Dick Cavett Show), 1970
If she had lived, what would she sound like, at 68, today?
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lagniappe
reading table
We shall not ever meet them bearded in heaven,
Nor sunning themselves among the bald of hell;
If anywhere, in the deserted schoolyard at twilight,
Forming a ring, perhaps, or joining hands
In games whose very names we have forgotten.
Come, memory, let us seek them there in the shadows.—Donald Justice, “On the Death of Friends in Childhood”
funeral service and second line for Snooks Eaglin
9/27/09, New Orleans
Irma Thomas, “Singin’ Hallelujah”
*****
Charmaine Neville, Clarence “Frogman” Henry, Allen Toussaint, et al.
“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”
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“Hush, Somebody’s Calling My Name”
three takes
“N’teri”
Habib Koité, live, c. 2007
*****
Regina Carter (violin), Yacouba Sissoko (kora), Will Holshouser (accordion)
Live, radio broadcast (KPLU-FM), 2011
Kora, violin, accordion—even the names of these instruments sound good together. You have, in succession, words of two, three, and four syllables. Consonants repeat (k/c, r, n), as do vowels (o, a). The last word (“accordion”) echoes both syllables of the first (“kora”), reversing them, as well as the end of the second (“violin”). What does any of this mean? Nothing—it’s simply, for me, a small source of additional pleasure.
*****
Habib Koité, recording, 2007
old stuff
Best two minutes of the whole day?
Jimmie Lunceford and his Orchestra (with Jimmy Crawford, drums)
“White Heat,” 1939
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
It’s difficult to name one favorite drummer, because . . . I’ve got a lot of favorites. But Jimmy Crawford—they called him “Craw”—with the Jimmie Lunceford band? He was a motherfucker.
*****
reading table
How should I not be glad to contemplate
The clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
And a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
There will be dying, there will be dying,
But there is no need to go into that.
The lines flow from the hand unbidden
And the hidden source is the watchful heart.
The sun rises in spite of everything
And the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
Watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right.—Derek Mahon, “Everything Is Going to Be All Right”
Has Monday ever sounded better?
Snooks Eaglin (with George Porter, Jr., bass; Kenneth Blevins, drums)
Live, New York (Lone Star Roadhouse), early ’90s
“I Just Cried Oh”
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“Baby Please”
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“Lipstick Traces”
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“You Don’t Have To Go”
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“Young Girl”
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“Red Beans” (with Jon Cleary, piano)
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Great guitar players don’t play notes—they play sounds.
