Sax player in a ska band—easiest job in music?
The Blues Busters, “I Don’t Know,” live, Jamaica (Kingston [Sombrero Club]), 1962
Who else sounds like Kate & Anna McGarrigle?
Who else makes such wonderfully eccentric career moves—like, for instance, putting out an album all in French?
Who else has not one but two children following in their musical footsteps (Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright)?
Kate McGarrigle (February 6, 1946-January 18, 2010)
Kate & Anna McGarrigle
“Ce Matin,” live, Chicago, 2004
*****
“Talk To Me of Mendocino,” live, Saratoga Springs, New York, 1990
*****
With Family & Friends (including Rufus and Martha Wainwright), live, Mariposa Folk Festival, Toronto, 1989
*****
“Complainte Pour Ste. Catherine,” live, 1981
*****
“Proserpina,” live, London, 12/9/09 (Kate’s last concert)
Chicago Blues Festival, part 4
Here, to wrap up this festival, is one of the best performances by Otis Rush I’ve ever heard (which makes it one of the best blues performances I’ve ever heard [which makes it, etc.]).
Otis Rush (with Fred Below, drums), “I Can’t Quit You Baby,” live, Germany, 1966
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lagniappe
I was staying with my sister and messing around with the guitar every day for my own amusement. Then she took me around and introduced me to Muddy Waters, Jimmy Rogers, Little Walter, and the first time I saw that onstage, it inspired me to play. I thought that was the world.—Otis Rush
Chicago Blues Festival, part 3
Junior Wells
“Ships On The Ocean” (with Buddy Guy, guitar), live, Chicago (Theresa’s Lounge, 48th & Indiana), mid-1970s
*****
“Hoodoo Man Blues” (with Otis Rush, guitar; Fred Below, drums), live, Germany, 1966
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lagniappe
After Buddy [Guy] and Junior [Wells] did their show in Frankfurt [during a 1970 European tour opening for the Rolling Stones], Mick Jagger came into the dressing room and started to talk to Junior about a certain harmonica technique. First, Mick played for Junior, who listened carefully. Then, Junior pointed to his head and told Mick that the blues sound Mick was looking for was something he had to feel in his mind. It wasn’t just a matter of playing the instrument. He had to understand what the blues experience was all about and then bring it forth on his own.—Dick Waterman, Between Midnight And Day (2003).
Chicago Blues Festival, part 2
Howlin’ Wolf (with Hubert Sumlin, guitar), live, Chicago, 1966
“How Many More Years”
*****
“Meet Me In The Bottom”
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lagniappe
When I first heard him [Howlin’ Wolf], I said, ‘This is for me. This is where the soul of man never dies.’—Sam Phillips
Chicago Blues Festival, part 1
Muddy Waters (with James Cotton, harmonica; Otis Spann, piano; Pat Hare, guitar; Andrew Stevenson, bass; Francis Clay, drums), “Got My Mojo Working,” live, Newport Jazz Festival, 1960
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lagniappe
Soon after he got to Chicago, Muddy [Waters] began playing the blues for his friends in relaxed moments, and that led to work playing at rent parties, for small tips and all the whiskey he could drink. ‘You know,’ he said, refilling his glass with champagne, ‘I wanted to go to Chicago in the late thirties, ’cause Robert Nighthawk came to see me and said he was goin’ and get a record. He says, you go along and you might get on with me. I thought, oh, man, this cat is just jivin’, he ain’t goin’ to Chicago. I thought goin’ to Chicago was like goin’ out of the world. Finally he split, and the next time I heard he had a record out. So I started asking some of my friends that had went to Chicago, Can I make it with my guitar? ‘Naww, they don’t listen to that kind of old blues you’re doin’ now, don’t nobody listen to that, not in Chicago. So when I finally come to Chicago, the same person that told me that . . . Dan’s wife, my sister, that’s the same person I started playin’ every Saturday night for, at the rent party in her apartment. Peoples is awful funny.’ He chuckled, savoring the irony. ‘So I started playing for these rent parties, and then I run into Blue Smitty and Jimmy Rogers and we got somethin’ goin’ on. We started playing little neighborhood bars on the West Side, five nights a week, five dollars a night. It wasn’t no big money, but we’s doin’ it.’ They were doing it, all right; they were creating modern blues and laying the groundwork for rock and roll.—Robert Palmer, Deep Blues (1981)
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
Why take a straight path when you can take a crooked one?
Sheila Jordan (with Steve Kuhn, piano; David Finck, bass; Billy Drummond, drums; Mark Feldman and Barry Finclair, violin; Vincent Lionti, viola; Harold Birston, cello), “Autumn in New York,” live, 2008, New York (on her 80th birthday)
captivating, adj. capturing interest as if by a spell. E.g., Betty Carter.
Betty Carter (with Cyrus Chestnut, piano), “Once Upon A Summertime,” live, Japan, 1993
(Watch how she moves when giving way to Cyrus Chestnut’s piano solo [3:40-54]: the elegance of a dancer, the dignity of a queen.)
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If you’re sitting in that audience ready to fight me from the very beginning, I’m going to have a hard time getting to you. But if you’ve got a heart at all, I’m going to get it.—Betty Carter
Is there any greater joy than to hear something fresh?
Steve Lehman (saxophonist, composer, bandleader), talking and playing, 2009
Want more? Here (click on the “listen” tab).
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. . . the most important thing, and the most important element of the music, and the most important compositional step is deciding who it is that you’re going to work with—even more so than what notes they’re going to play, or what context you’re going to put them in.—Steve Lehman
music clip of the day 