music clip of the day

jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more

Category: gospel

2012

Sunday, 11/4/12

three takes

“Move On Up A Little Higher” (W. Herbert Brewster)

Mahalia Jackson, radio broadcast, early 1950s

*****

Brother Joe May, live, early 1950s

*****

Rev. Timothy Flemming Sr., live, Atlanta, 1976

**********

lagniappe

art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago (with my son Alex)

Helen Levitt, Janice Loeb, James Agee, In the Street (1948), featured in the exhibit Film and Photo in New York (through 11/25/12)

(For better quality go to the “Settings” icon [lower right] and select 480p.)

*****

random thoughts

Sixty years ago today Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected the thirty-fourth President of the United States and, closer to home, my parents’ second son was born. What’s it like turning sixty? Surprising. But no more surprising, I suppose, than finding oneself entwined, in perpetuity, with Ike.

Leave a comment
2012

Saturday, 11/3/12

It must have been a comfort, when she was dying, to be able to say to her son, whose trumpet she’d heard since he was a little boy, these are the songs I want you to play at my memorial service.

Dave Douglas  Quintet* with guest Aoife O’Donovan (vocal), “Be Still My Soul” (words by Ka­tha­ri­na A. von Schle­gel, adapted by Aoife O’Donovan, music by Jean Si­bel­ius, arranged by Dave Douglas), recording session (Be Still, 2012)

*DD, trumpet; Jon Irabagon, saxophone; Matt Mitchell, piano; Linda Oh, bass; Rudy Royston, drums.

Leave a comment
2012

Sunday, 10/28/12

Nearly forty years have passed since I first heard him; still I can’t get enough.

Vernard Johnson, “Amazing Grace,” live, Memphis, 1988

**********

lagniappe

reading table

Life tears us apart, but through those wounds, if we have tended them, love may enter us.

—Christian Wiman, “Mortify Our Wolves,” The American Scholar, Autumn, 2012

Leave a comment
2012

Sunday, 10/21/12

Here are a couple more takes on a song we heard the other day.

“I Couldn’t Hear Nobody Pray”

Fisk University Jubilee Quartet, 1909 (first known recording)

*****

Wiley College A Cappella Choir, live, 2010
The Shores at Wesley Manor, Ocean City, New Jersey

**********

lagniappe

musical thoughts

“Couldn’t Hear Nobody Pray; couldn’t hear nobody pray; way down yonder by myself; couldn’t hear nobody pray.” This “spiritual” was sung as part of a brilliant system of signals devised by men and women attempting an escape from the clutches of American slavery. The song’s coded meaning was, “An escape attempt has failed. We’re all trying to re-group, emotionally and spiritually.”
(http://ctl.du.edu/spirituals/freedom/coded.cfm).
The unfortunate persons singing this lament found themselves in imminent danger. Their best plans toward freedom had not worked; and there existed an immediate need for help, for direction, for protection, for divine intervention. They needed to hear somebody pray!

—Vivian M. Lucas

Leave a comment
2012

Sunday, 10/14/12

Bobby testifies.

The Womack Brothers (with Bobby, then 17, on lead vocal), “Couldn’t Hear Nobody Pray” (SAR Records [Sam Cooke’s label]; rec. 6/28/1961, Universal Recording Studios, Chicago)

*****

The next year, as the Valentinos, they recorded this.

The Valentinos (with Bobby on lead vocal), “Lookin’ For A Love” (SAR Records, 1962)

Leave a comment
2012

Sunday, 10/7/12

Some folks sing with their feet.

Duke Ellington Orchestra, Bunny Briggs (dance), Jon Hendricks (vocal), “David Danced Before the Lord with All His Might,” live, San Francisco (Grace Cathedral), 1965

**********

lagniappe

reading table

And David danced before the Lord with all his might . . .

—2 Samuel 6:14 (King James)

Leave a comment
2012

Sunday, 9/30/12

best show on radio?

Kevin Nutt, Sinner’s Crossroads, WFMU-FM*
Marathon Broadcast, 3/12/09

*Thursday nights, 8-9 p.m. (EST). Wanna hear last week’s show? Here.

*****

taking a break

I’m taking some time off—back in a while.

Leave a comment
2012

Sunday, 9/23/12

Little Richard testifies.

With Jerry Lee Lewis, “I’ll Fly Away,” TV show, 1983

***

With The Shirelles, “Joy, Joy, Joy,” TV show (England), 1963

**********

lagniappe

random thoughts

What do you do when it becomes apparent that the story of your life is being told by an unreliable narrator?

Leave a comment
2012

Sunday, 9/16/12

Sister Rosetta Tharpe with the Chicago Blues All-Stars (Big Walter Horton [harmonica], Willie Dixon [bass], et al.), “That’s All,” “Didn’t It Rain,” live, 1960s, Germany

What a treat to hear Walter, with whom I worked back in the ’70s while at Alligator Records, playing with Sister Rosetta.

Leave a comment
2012

Sunday, 9/9/12

Rarely has dying sounded so joyous.

Glen David Andrews, “I’ll Fly Away”
Live, New Orleans (Zion Hill Baptist Church), 2008

**********

lagniappe

reading table

[P]eople exist for us only in the idea that we have of them.

—Marcel Proust, The Fugitive (translated from French by Peter Collier)

*****

Each year on this auspicious day, alone and foreign
here in a foreign place, my thoughts of you sharpen;

far away, I can almost see you reaching the summit,
dogwood berries woven into sashes, short one person.

—Wang Wei (701-61), “9/9, Thinking of My Brothers East of the Mountains” (trans. from Chinese by David Hinton)

Leave a comment