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: drums
2011
2011
Sunday, 4/3/11
We’ve always believed in singing, in expressing ourselves.
***
Sometimes a song . . . is just as great as a sermon.
***
A hurricane starts off slowly . . . and when she gets a certain speed, that’s when she’s dangerous. Most preachers . . . get their power going up . . . . [M]ost of my power is given by coming down, down, after I’ve gone up.
—Rev. Johnny L. Jones
Rev. Johnny L. Jones, live, Atlanta
The Hurricane That Hit Atlanta (Dust-To-Digital 2010)
Vodpod videos no longer available.
**********
lagniappe
musical thoughts
. . . music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts.—T.S. Eliot, “The Dry Salvages” (Four Quartets)
2011
Friday, 4/1/11
I could listen to this—just the drum track, even—all day.
Booker T. Jones with The Roots, “Everything Is Everything”
Live (recording studio), The Road From Memphis (5/11 release)
**********
lagniappe
reading table
spring peace—
after rain a gang war
garden sparrows
—Kobayashi Issa, 1795 (trans. David G. Lanoue)
(Want to improve your life immeasurably? For free? Without side effects? Sign up for Issa Haiku-a-Day. Your inbox never had it so good).
*****
Alcove
Is it possible that spring could be
once more approaching? We forget each time
what a mindless business it is, porous like sleep,
adrift on the horizon, refusing to take sides, “mugwump
of the final hour,” lest an agenda—horrors!—be imputed to it,
and the whole point of its being spring collapse
like a hole dug in sand. It’s breathy, though,
you have to say that for it.
And should further seasons coagulate
into years, like spilled, dried paint, why,
who’s to say we weren’t provident? We indeed
looked out for others as though they mattered, and they,
catching the spirit, came home with us, spent the night
in an alcove from which their breathing could be heard clearly.
But it’s not over yet. Terrible incidents happen
daily. That’s how we get around obstacles.
—John Ashbery (Planisphere [2009])
2011
Thursday, 3/31/11
basement jukebox*
(an occasional series)
Fontella Bass, “Rescue Me” (1965)
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
Tyrone Davis, “Can I Change My Mind” (1969)
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
Otis Clay, “The Only Way Is Up” (1980)
Vodpod videos no longer available.*When I was a little boy, a big bright shiny jukebox lit up our basement. Daily it granted our wishes, communicated with just the touch of a finger, for “Wake Up, Little Susie” (Everly Brothers) and “The Battle of New Orleans” (Johnny Horton) and “(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance” (Gene Pitney). It taught me something I’ve never forgotten—music is magic.
2011
Tuesday, 3/29/11
Zimbabwe
The music is as sweet as the news is bleak.
Zimbabwe College of Music Mbira Ensemble (with Thanda Richardson, vocals), live, Harare (Mannenberg Jazz Club), 2/17/08
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
Mbira Dzenharira, “Saramugomo,” 2001
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
SMG Young Stars, Kenge Art, Mutubambile Orphan Choir with Oliver Mtukudzi, Magariro Edu Marimba Band
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
lagniappe
reading table
. . . [Robert Mugabe’s] regime . . . has lost all its moral bearings, a gang of thieves and murderers bent on holding power at any cost. The book draws to a close with the testimony of Emmanuel Chiroto, a Harare opposition leader whose campaign for mayor has brought down the wrath of Mugabe’s goons. Even as he is celebrating his victory, members of the youth militia set his house on fire and abduct his wife, Abigail, and 4-year-old son. The boy is released, but Abigail’s swollen and battered corpse is found in the morgue. “This is my lovely wife,” Chiroto tells Godwin, holding up a cellphone image of Abigail in her wedding dress. “And they killed her.” Three years after his defeat at the polls, Mugabe still clings to power in his ruined nation. But Godwin’s intrepid reportage has at least given voice to some of his victims.
—Joshua Hammer, New York Times Book Review, 3/27/11 (review of The Fear: Robert Mugabe and the Martyrdom of Zimbabwe by Peter Godwin)
*****
sight seen
In Cambridge, Massachusetts, sitting on a brick sidewalk in Harvard Square, a panhandler with a large sign:
Seeking Human Kindness
2011
Monday, 3/28/11
four takes
“Everybody Needs Love” (Eddie Hinton)
Drive-By Truckers, live, Ashland, North Carolina, 2010
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
Eddie Hinton, live, c. 1982
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
Eddie Hinton, recording, 1982
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
Drive-By Truckers, live (TV broadcast [Conan]), 3/8/11
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
lagniappe
overheard
Sunday morning, on a plane from Chicago to Boston, a young girl in the row in front of me:
I just don’t get how air is bumpy.
***
Do people in Boston have accents?
2011
Sunday, 3/27/11
For some folks singing is as vital as breathing.
Five Star Jubilee Singers, Harriman Junction, Tennessee
Live, “I’ve Been Changed,” “Go Down Moses,” “I’m Just Keeping It Real,” “Open the Floodgates to Heaven,” 2008
**********
lagniappe
It’s a Friday night in downtown Harriman, and inside the Anointed Praise and Worship Church, the Five Star Jubilee Singers are playing like it’s already Sunday morning.
On drums is Anterrio Ray, 33, an ex-Golden Gloves boxer whose first drum set was a five-gallon bucket and a set of hubcaps. Playing electric bass is Antonio Myers, and that’s his father, Gary Myers, singing four-part harmony with the rest of the band.
They’re an extended family, this nine-member gospel group. When lead vocalist, David Bertram, 60, grabs the microphone, the music kicks in to overdrive. It’s only a rehearsal, but by the third song, Bertram is wiping his brow with a handkerchief.
“With traditional gospel music, you either get saved, or you head for the door,” says vocalist Melinda Bertram, David’s wife. “The Lord is not going to let you just sit there.”
The Five Star Jubilee Singers perform quartet-style harmonies, with electric guitars and drums thrown into the mix. Their style and repertory recall such great black gospel groups as the Swan Silvertones, the Soul Stirrers and the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi. They’ve been playing in and around Harriman for more than 50 years, making them one of the longest-running gospel acts in the region.
During the 1950s, the original Five Star Jubilee Singers won national singing conventions and toured extensively throughout the Southeast.
Today, the group sings at churches and revivals across East Tennessee, for congregations both black and white.
Bertram started singing with the Five Star Jubilee Singers when he was 12 years old. At 18 he moved up North and spent the next 30 years singing professionally with several gospel groups. In 1970, after moving back to Harriman, he convinced the Five Star Jubilee Singers to reunite.
Almost every member of the Five Star Jubilee Singers is related to someone from the original band. Bertram’s older brother, Thurman, was a founding member of the group, as was David Goins. Both these band members are now dead, as is Freeman Goins, David Goins’ younger brother, who died of a heart attack on June 27, 2007, while returning home from a rehearsal.
Every Friday night the band rehearses at the Anointed Praise and Worship Church in Harriman. Arlene Goins, 68, plays electric guitar, and so does her son, William Wright, 42. Including the bass, the Five Star Jubilee Singers have four electric guitars, the newest player being John Dye, of Clinton, Tenn., who joined the group as a rock guitarist.
***
“Our main thing is to get people to come to Jesus,” added David. “I’m going to do this till I lay down. I’m going to sing till He calls me.”
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
Friday, 3/25/11
Western Swing Festival
Beginning on Friday, March 25th at 8:00 a.m. . . . [we] will honor the legacy of Western Swing with 64 hours of continuous programming, running until midnight on Sunday, March 27th (this will preempt all regularly scheduled programming). We will explore the genre’s entire history, from its roots in the 1920s and 1930s to bands still performing today. The festival will also include live performances and interviews with several Western Swing experts. Grab your ten-gallon hat, lace up those dancin’ boots, and come swing with us!
—WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University)
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys
“I Hear Ya Talkin'”
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
“San Antonio Rose”
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
“Take Me Back To Tulsa”
Vodpod videos no longer available.2011
Sunday, 3/20/11
Sherman Washington Jr. (Zion Harmonizers)
December 13, 1925-March 14, 2011
Zion Harmonizers with Aaron Neville, “Wonderful,” live, New Orleans (Gospel Tent, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival), 1991
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
lagniappe
Sherman Washington Jr., the leader of the Zion Harmonizers and the godfather of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival’s Gospel Tent, died early Monday at his home in Boutte after a long illness. He was 85.
What Ellis Marsalis is to jazz, Mr. Washington was to gospel. For three decades, he hosted a Sunday morning gospel show on WYLD-AM that served as the gospel community’s town hall. He led the Zion Harmonizers, New Orleans’ longest-running gospel vocal group, since the 1940s. The Harmonizers appeared at the very first Jazz Fest, staged in 1970 in what is now Armstrong Park.
After the festival moved to the Fair Grounds in 1972, he oversaw the growth of the Gospel Tent, building it into a cornerstone of the festival’s roots-music presentation. The tent introduced a music largely unknown outside the African-American churches where it was born to a much broader audience.
Until deteriorating health finally slowed him down in recent years, he administered the Gospel Tent with a steadfast integrity and intimate knowledge of the music, musicians and singers. Given that many acts consist of large choirs, the tent features more performers than any other stage at the festival.
“Gospel, even after jazz and blues came down to the front of the bus, was still in the back of the bus,” said Jazz Fest producer/director Quint Davis. “To a large extent, Sherman’s work through the Gospel Tent has helped bring gospel music to the front of the bus. An enormous debt is owed to him by the festival, and the whole gospel world.”
Davis expects the upcoming Jazz Fest to feature a tribute to Mr. Washington.
“You can talk about soul with either a lower-case ‘s’ or an upper-case ‘S,'” Davis said. “Sherman had soul with a capital S.”
***
In the late 1960s, the Harmonizers roster included a Mississippi-born bass singer named John Hawkins. In early 1970, Hawkins met Quint Davis at Mason’s Hotel on Claiborne Avenue and came back to Mr. Washington with news of this young music fan who was organizing a music and heritage festival.
Mr. Washington went to meet Davis and partner Allison Miner, and the Zion Harmonizers were booked for the first Jazz Fest at Congo Square. The forerunner of today’s Gospel Tent was a 15-by-20-foot open-sided tent with an upright piano and no floor, stage or sound system.
When Jazz Fest moved to the Fair Grounds in 1972, Davis approached Mr. Washington with an idea.
“Quint said, ‘I had a dream,’” Mr. Washington recalled. “And I thought, ‘This isn’t Dr. King, is it?’ He said, ‘I had a dream that I’m going to build a Gospel Tent, and I want you to run it.’ ”
Mr. Washington’s diplomatic skills came in handy. In the early 1970s, gospel choirs rarely performed outside of churches or church functions. They certainly didn’t perform at “hippie” events where beer was served. Pastors resisted the idea of choirs performing at Jazz Fest.
“The preachers were against me,” Mr. Washington said, “because people would drink beer in the Gospel Tent. I would ask the choir’s president or manager, and he’d tell me yeah. Then he’d come back and say, ‘Our pastor doesn’t want us to sing in the Gospel Tent.’ ”
So instead of church choirs, Mr. Washington booked vocal quartets that weren’t affiliated with churches.
“Those are the ones I had to depend on,” he said. “They would tear the place up, pack it out. We didn’t pay those preachers no mind. We kept going.”
Opinions eventually changed and choirs lobbied Mr. Washington to be included. “I think the choir members got on the pastors about it. Because if a person drinks a beer or something, that’s their soul, not yours. If you’re singing, you’re doing what God wants you to do.”
Eventually, a small staff was assigned to assist Mr. Washington, but he still screened most acts in person. He attended rehearsals and private auditions, offering advice along the way.
“He had never been in a role like this,” Davis said. “He was a true man of God who was not in it to advance himself or build an empire. He worked through his community and spiritual connections to put it all together. He knew who was the real deal, who needed to play.”
Mr. Washington insisted on a high level of professionalism and skill, as he knew any group could well be some Jazz Fest’s attendee’s first exposure to gospel. He wanted the music to make a good first impression.
“This Gospel Tent has brought more white people to gospel than anybody had ever seen, ” Mr. Washington said in 2002. “Now, it’s more white people than black people. And they get into it. It brings the white and black together. People get together and stand up, you don’t know who is who.”
—Keith Spera, The Times-Picayune (New Orleans), 3/14/11
On March 14, 2011 at 2:36 AM, the music stopped and his lyrics became a reality.
*****
listening room: what’s playing
• Bach, Cello Suites, Steven Isserlis, Jean-Guihen Queyras
• Von Freeman, Walkin’ Tuff, Vonski Speaks, Young & Foolish
• Milton Babbitt, Piano Works, Robert Taub
• Buddy & Julie Miller, Written in Chalk
• Nneka, Concrete Jungle
• Jason Moran, Ten
• Steve Lehman, Travail, Transformation, and Flow
• Friedrich Gulda, Piano Recital 1959 (Bach, Haydn, Beethoven)
• Theo Parrish, First Floor
• Theo Parrish, Sound Sculptures, Vol. 1
• Roger Sessions, Works for Violin, Cello, Piano; Curtis Macomber (violin), Joel Krosnick (cello), Barry David Salwen (piano)
• Roger Sessions, Sonatas Nos. 1 & 3; Ralph Shapey, Mutations and Mutations II, 21 Variations, David Holzman (piano)
• Yascha Heifetz (violin), Chamber Music Collection, Vol. 1 (Mozart, et al.)
• Morton Feldman, For Bunita Marcus, Stephane Ginsburgh (piano)
• Sinner’s Crossroads, Kevin Nutt, WFMU-FM (Thursday, 8-9 p.m. [EST])
• Gospel Memories, Bob Marovich, WLUW-FM (Saturday 10-11 a.m. [CST])
• Give the Drummer Some, Doug Schulkind, WFMU-FM (Friday, 9 a.m.-noon [EST]; web stream only)
• Bird Flight, Phil Schaap, WKCR-FM (M-F, 8:20-9:30 a.m. [EST])
• WFMU-FM, Annual Fundraising Marathon
