sounds of Nigeria
Fela Kuti, live (filmed by Ginger Baker), Nigeria (Calabar), 1971
Vodpod videos no longer available.More? Here.
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lagniappe
art beat: yesterday at Chicago’s Art Institute
Oda Kazuma, Catching Whitebait at Nakaumi, Izumo (1924)
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Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1953-54
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reading table
. . . life, that storm before the calm.
—Wislawa Szymborska, from “Negative” (trans. Clare Cavanagh & Stanislaw Baranczak, Monologue of a Dog [2006])
only rock ’n’ roll
(an occasional series)
MC5, “Kick Out The Jams,” live, Detroit, 1970
Vodpod videos no longer available.Rock ’n’ roll, requiring no formal training, depending more on verve than virtuosity, is a kind of folk music. Folk music, at its best, evokes a particular place. Can you imagine these guys coming out of, say, San Francisco?
only rock ’n roll
(an occasional series)
Coldplay, “Rehab” (Amy Winehouse)/“Fix You”
Live, Chicago (Lollapalooza), 8/5/11
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lagniappe
reading table
when I’m dead
who’ll wear it next?
new summer robe—Kobayashi Issa, 1817 (trans. David G. Lanoue)
three takes
“Grown So Ugly” (Robert Pete Williams)
I got so ugly, I don’t even know myself . . .
Black Keys
Live, Nashville (Grimey’s Record Store), 2006
More? Here.
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Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band (with Ry Cooder, guitar)
Safe As Milk, 1967
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Robert Pete Williams
Free Again, 1961
This is, to these ears, one of the greatest—most vivid, most haunting—songs in all of blues.
Happy Birthday (Again), Pops!
During his life, Louis Armstrong’s birthday was believed to be July 4, 1900, but, as it turned out, that was a year and a month off—the actual date was August 4, 1901. Given the circumstances, WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University) does the only sensible thing: they celebrate both days, playing nothing but Pops 24 hours straight.
favorites
(an occasional series)
According to Miles Davis, the history of jazz can be told in four words:
here are the first two.
Louis Armstrong, “Dinah,” live, Copenhagen, 1933
(Originally posted January 15, 2010.)
What better way to start the workweek?
Joe Lee Wilson, singer, December 22, 1935-July 17, 2011
Archie Shepp, “Money Blues” (featuring Joe Lee Wilson, lead vocals)
Things Have Got To Change (Impulse!), 1971
Part #1
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
Part #2
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
lagniappe
Around Joe Lee (excerpt)
Vodpod videos no longer available.only rock ’n roll
(an occasional series)
The great thing about rock ’n roll is you don’t have to understand
a single word for it to make perfect sense.
Hasil Adkins, “She Said”
Take 1: live
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
Take 2: recording (1964)
Vodpod videos no longer available.
More? Here.
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lagniappe
only rock ’n roll
(an occasional series)
Oneida, “The Adversary,” Ireland, 10/07
Vodpod videos no longer available.what’s new
(an occasional series)
James Blake, “The Wilhelm Scream,” Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, 7/14/11
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
favorites
(an occasional series)
Hearing JB brought this MCOTD fave to mind (originally posted 11/23/09).
Here’s Arthur Russell, the “seminal avant-garde composer, singer-songwriter, cellist and disco producer” who died in 1992 at the age of 40 (of AIDS-related complications) and is the subject of both a recent documentary, Wild Combination, and a new book, Hold On To Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene, 1973-1992.
Arthur Russell
“Get Around To It”
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“You And Me Both”
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“This Is How We Walk on the Moon”
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“That’s Us/Wild Combination”
(Yeah, the fact that I’m posting four tracks by this guy shows how much his music, which I just encountered recently, has been getting under my skin.)
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[Russell’s] various distinctions—folkie, art-music songwriter and improviser, dance-club maven—seem incoherent until you hear several of his records. When musicians get angry about being categorized by critics, I usually feel frustrated: readers, after all, want to know what the record sounds like. With Russell, I take the musicians’ angle. Just listen to it and you’ll understand.
—Ben Ratliff, “The Many Faces, and Grooves, of Arthur Russell,” New York Times, 2/29/04
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For Arthur, there was no cachet to being eclectic. Rather, he played across genre because it would have required a colossal and entirely counterproductive effort on his part to stick to one sound. . . . Drifting into an ethereal, gravity-defying zone, Arthur had come to embody the interconnectivity of music.
—Tim Lawrence, Hold On To Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene, 1973-1992 (2009).
Happy (75th) Birthday, Albert!
Albert Ayler, tenor saxophonist, July 13, 1936-November 25, 1970
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Albert Ayler Trio (Albert Ayler, ts; Gary Peacock, bass; Sunny Murray, drums), Spiritual Unity (ESP), 1964
“Ghosts: First Variation”
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“The Wizard”
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“Spirits”
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“Ghosts: Second Variation”
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lagniappe
random thoughts
OK, let’s talk physics. One problem with the term “free jazz” is that it suggests a sound world in which there’s no center of gravity—a world where everything pushes outward, where centrifugal force rules. But the reality, with many of the greatest artists, is different. Centripetal, not centrifugal, force is king. The musicians push inward, not outward, toward a center none ever inhabits individually but, collectively, they are always moving toward.
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The contributions of Gary Peacock and Sunny Murray are hard to overstate. Sidemen? There are none.
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Like Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler is at heart a blues musician—one who, like Ornette, expanded the blues vocabulary.
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radio
Today, from noon to 9 p.m. (EST), WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University) is all Albert Ayler.
