Monday, 4/4/11
Feeling glum?
Not for long.
Albert Ammons, Lena Horne, Pete Johnson, Teddy Wilson
Boogie-Woogie Dream (1944)
Part 1
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
Part 2
Vodpod videos no longer available.music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Category: blues
2011
2011
Saturday, 3/26/11
The notes are easy enough to replicate—the touch impossible.
Pinetop Perkins (piano, vocals), July 7, 1913-March 21, 2011
“Grindin’ Man” (with Willie “Big Eyes” Smith, harmonica), live, New Jersey (New Brunswick), 2008
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
“How Long Blues,” live
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
lagniappe
He was one of the last great Mississippi Bluesmen. He had such a distinctive voice, and he sure could play the piano. He will be missed not only by me, but by lovers of music all over the world.
*****
If you don’t want to die, don’t be born.
—Red Paden, owner of Red’s Blues Club, Clarksdale, Mississippi
*****
my back pages
Many years ago I had the pleasure of working with him, co-producing his tracks on Living Chicago Blues, Vol. 2 (Alligator 1978). Warm, amiable, unassuming—he was easy to like.
*****
listening room: what’s playing
• Ornette Coleman, Town Hall 1962
• Mos Def, The Ecstatic
• Lupe Fiasco, Lasers
• Steve Reich, Double Sextet, 2×5
• Rudresh Mahanthappa & Bunky Green, Apex
• Nneka, Concrete Jungle
• Theo Parrish, Sound Sculptures, Vol. 1
• Powerhouse Gospel On Independent Labels, 1946-1959
• WFMU-FM: Sinner’s Crossroads (Kevin Nutt), Mudd Up! (DJ/rupture)
• WKCR-FM: Bird Flight (Phil Schapp), Jazz Alternatives (various), Out To Lunch (various), Western Swing Festival (various)
2011
Saturday, 3/19/11
Sometimes, when the world just seems too noisy, too busy, what you need is something that couldn’t be simpler.
Slim Harpo, “Rainin’ In My Heart” (1961)
Vodpod videos no longer available.2011
Tuesday, 3/15/11
Big Jack Johnson, July 30, 1940-March 14, 2011
Live (Deep Blues, 1992)
“Catfish Blues”
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
“Daddy, When Is Mama Coming Home”
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
lagniappe
art beat
American Modern: Abbott, Evans, Bourke-White
Art Institute of Chicago (through 5/15/11)
Walker Evans, Barbershops, Vicksburg, Mississippi (1936)
2011
Wednesday, 3/9/11
Happy (81st) Birthday, Ornette!
His sound—his whole approach (simple melodies, vocal phrasing, off-center intonation)—is drenched in the blues.
Ornette Coleman (alto saxophone) with The Roots
Live, London (Meltdown Festival), 2009
#1
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
#2
Vodpod videos no longer available.The tenor player at the end—that’s David Murray.
More Ornette? Here.
**********
lagniappe
radio
What am I listening to today?
That’s easy—WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University), where it’s all Ornette all day.
2011
Monday, 2/28/11
When something is this lyrical, this convincing, there’s only one thing I want to do when it ends—hear it again.
Michael Burks, “Empty Promises,” live, Falls Church, Virginia, 8/21/09
Vodpod videos no longer available.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
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
Recording (with Otis Spann, piano; Robert Jr. Lockwood & Luther Tucker, guitars; Willie Dixon, bass; Odie Payne, drums), Chess Records, Chicago, 12/14/60
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
Recording (with Elmore James, guitar; Willie Love, piano; Cliff Givens, bass; Joe Dyson, drums), Trumpet Records, Jackson, Mississippi, 12/4/51
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
Three Below Zero?
Seven Below Zero?
Ten Below Zero?
Sonny Boy nailed it with nine.
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
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
lagniappe
Keys to the Kingdom (new album)
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
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:
Vodpod videos no longer available.2011
Thursday, 1/20/11
Some voices seem to come from another world.
Skip James, “Devil Got My Woman,” 1931
Vodpod videos no longer available.More? Here.
**********
lagniappe
reading table: variations on a theme
I sometimes think that an idea is the worst thing that can happen to a writer.
—David Vann, New York Times, 1/14/11
***
[A]ll ideas . . . fail to work at some point . . .
—David Kirby, “L’Explication de Tasty-Fuck”
***
Ideas are always wrong.
—William Bronk, “Blue Spruces in Pairs, A Bird Bath Between”
2011
Tuesday, 1/18/11
two takes
The other night, as my older son Alex packed up his stuff for the next day’s trip back to school, this played on his computer—over and over and over.
The Mountain Goats, “This Year”
#1: recording (The Sunset Tree), 2005
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
#2: live, Iowa (Ames), 2006
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
lagniappe
art beat
Lee Friedlander, New York City (Self-Portrait), c. 1960(?)
*****
More Son Seals
Last night I discovered that two of the sets Son played at the Bottom Line in January of 1978 can be heard here and here. The second features a guest
artist—Johnny Winter.
music clip of the day 