Chicago, Texas, Louisiana, West Coast—blues comes in lots of different shades.
Freddie King, with Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown; live (TV broadcast [The !!!! Beat]), 1966
Part 1
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Part 2 (“Funnybone”)
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Part 3 (“Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag”)
more music from Mali
Bassekou Kouyate (ngoni) & Ngoni ba
“Ngoni fola” (2007)
*****
Live, Mali (Timbuktu), 2010
*****
Live, Germany (Rostock), 2007
music from Mali
Sometimes the groove is so deep and so wide and so relaxed that, even if someone’s talking over it in a language you don’t understand at all, you just want to lie down in it and stay there.
Ali Farka Toure, guitar and vocals, “Ai du”
Jenny said when she was just five years old
There was nothin’ happening at all
Every time she puts on the radio
There was nothin’ goin’ down at all
Not at allThen one fine mornin’, she puts on a New York station
You know, she couldn’t believe what she heard at all
She started shakin’ to that fine, fine music
You know, her life was saved by rock and roll . . .—Lou Reed, “Rock & Roll” (The Velvet Underground, Loaded [1970])
*****
Bo Diddley, “Hey, Bo Diddley,” “Bo Diddley,” live (TV broadcast [Ed Sullivan Show]), 1955
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lagniappe
This well may be the human race’s greatest ever achievement.
—YouTube comment
These guys sounded awfully good the other day—let’s hear some more.
Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue, “Orleans & Claiborne,” live, New Orleans, 2010
There are a lot of things to like about this performance. One is the way Shorty, following two hot solos (tenor, baritone), doesn’t try to out-blow those guys. Instead, he changes directions (3:20). Sometimes nothing packs more punch than restraint. (Yeah, I don’t know why this clip cuts off when it does, either.)
Want more? Here.
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lagniappe
passings
Soon I’ll be leaving for a funeral—my uncle, Hugh Frebault. Nine days ago we sat and talked and laughed for over an hour; now he’s silent. Does life get any more understandable as you get older? I don’t think so—if anything, it seems to become only more mysterious, more unfathomable.
Blind Willie Johnson, “Dark Was The Night – Cold Was The Ground” (1927, Dallas)
replay: a clip too good for just one day
The world became a less interesting place the day Lester Bowie died.
Digable Planets (with Lester Bowie [trumpet], Joe Sample [keyboard], Melvin “Wah-Wah Watson” Ragin [guitar]), “Flying High in the Brooklyn Sky,” live
Want to hear more of Lester? Here.
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lagniappe
Part of the job of a musician is that of a messenger. If you ain’t ready to be a messenger, forget it. You need to get a job in the post office or somewhere. If you ain’t ready to travel, pack up your family, or pack up yourself and hit the road, you’re in the wrong business. Because that’s what music is about. It’s about spreading knowledge and education, and re-education. It’s about spreading. You have got to travel with it to spread the word. Like all the people in the past that have had to travel to spread the music.
*****
It’s life itself that this [music] is about.
—Lester Bowie (in George E. Lewis, A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music [2008])
(Originally posted 10/28/09.)
no redeeming value whatsoever
Andre Williams & His Orchestra, “Sweet Little Pussycat” (1966)
lagniappe
Andre Williams, 2010
Is the greatest electric guitar player of all time a guy who died in 1942?
Charlie Christian, July 29, 1916-March 2, 1942
“Waiting for Benny” (1941 [recorded at a Benny Goodman session, while the engineers were testing the equipment])
*****
Live, New York (Minton’s), 1941
“Swing To Bop”
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“Stompin’ at the Savoy”
lagniappe
TV news piece, Oklahoma City, 2007 (following CC’s induction into the Jazz Hall of Fame)
New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, 2010/part 2
Scene 1: Parade of the New Orleans Social Aid and Pleasure Club
*****
Scene 2: Chouval Bwa
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Scene 3: Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue, “Backatown” (record-store performance)
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Scene 4: Pinettes Brass Band (outside another record store)
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New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, 2010/part 1
Scene 1: Sousaphone Parade
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Scene 2: Brian Blade & The Fellowship
Want more Brian Blade? Here.
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Scene 3: Mardi Gras Indians (Members of the Golden Star Hunters, Carrolton Hunters, et al.), Backstage
Want more Mardi Gras Indians? Here.
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