going back home
Davis Sisters, “I Believe I’ll Go Back Home”
TV Gospel Time (introduced by Brother Joe May), early 1960s
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lagniappe
Here’s a secular take.
John Lee Hooker, “I Believe I’ll Go Back Home” (That’s My Story: John Lee Hooker Sings The Blues, 1960)
*****
reading table
Home is never what you think it is.
Meaning lies in meaning’s absence. The mist
Is always just about to lift.—J. Allyn Rosser, “Sugar Dada” (excerpt)
Today let’s leave Chicago, where the longest season, it sometimes seems, is not-yet-spring, and head south—to a little church in a small town in Georgia.
Pilgrim Rest Primitive Baptist Church, Oglethorpe, Georgia, 12/17/11
Anything can be used to make music—even a book (7:57-).
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
The passion for music is itself an admission. We know more about a stranger who abandons himself to it than about someone indifferent to it whom we deal with every day.
—E. M. Cioran, Anathemas and Aphorisms (translated from French by Richard Howard, 1991)
the first voice Whitney heard
Emily “Cissy” Houston (born Emily Drinkard), singer, 1933-
The Drinkard Singers (Cissy Houston, lead vocals), “Lift Him Up,” live (TV broadcast), c. early 1960s
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lagniappe
Live (TV broadcast), 1970
“Be My Baby” (P. Spector, J. Barry & E. Greenwich)
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“I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself” (B. Bacharach & H. David)
*****
listening room: (some of) what’s playing
• Ambrose Akinmusire, When the Heart Emerges Glistening (Blue Note)
• Johann Sebastian Bach, Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, Pierre Fournier, cello (Archiv Production)
• Johann Sebastian Bach, Well-Tempered Clavier, Glenn Gould, piano (Sony)
• Johann Sebastian Bach, Partitas Nos. 3, 4, 6, Jeremy Denk, piano (Azica)
• Ludwig van Beethoven, Piano Sonatas Nos. 14 (“Moonlight”), 8 (“Pathetique”), 23 (“Appassionata”), Rudolf Serkin, piano (CBS)
• Alfred Cortot, The Master Pianist (EMI)
• Claude Debussy, Pour Le Piano, Etudes Books 1 & 2, Gordon Fergus-Thompson, piano (Musical Heritage Society)
• The Dirtbombs, Ultraglide In Black (In the Red Records)
• Morton Feldman, For Bunita Marcus, John Tilbury, piano (London Hall)
• Morton Feldman, Piano and String Quartet, Aki Takahashi (piano), Kronos Quartet (Nonesuch)
• Mary Halvorson Quintet, Saturn Sings (Firehouse)
• Slim Harpo, The Best of Slim Harpo (Hip-O)
• Paul Hindemith, Benjamin Britten, Krzysztof Penderecki; Kim Kashkashian (viola), Stuttgarter Kammerorchester (Dennis Russell Davies, cond.), Lachrymae (ECM)
• Steve Lehman Octet, Travail, Transformation, and Flow (Pi Recordings)
• Jimmie Lunceford, The Complete Jimmie Lunceford Decca Sessions (Mosaic)
• Guilliaume de Michaut, Motets, The Hilliard Ensemble (ECM)
• Paul Motian Trio (with Joe Lovano, Bill Frisell), Sound of Love (Winter & Winter)
• Mudd Up!, WFMU-FM (DJ/Rupture, “new bass and beats”)
• Pee Wee Russell, Swingin’ with Pee Wee (Prestige)
• Pharoah Sanders, Karma (GRP)
• Pharoah Sanders, Live (Evidence)
• Giacinto Scelsi, Natura Renovatur (ECM)
• Arnold Schoenberg, Piano Works, Peter Serkin, piano (Arcana)
• Sinner’s Crossroads, WFMU-FM (Kevin Nutt, gospel)
• Craig Taborn, Avenging Angel (ECM)
• Toru Takemitsu, Peter Serkin Plays the Music of Toru Takemitsu, Peter Serkin, piano (RCA/BMG)
• Anton Webern, Complete Music for String Quartet, Quartetto Italiano (Philips)
• Anton Webern, Works for String Quartet, Emerson Quartet (Deutsche Grammaphon)
• Wild Flag, Wild Flag (Merge)
the ecstatic impulse
Pharoah Sanders, tenor saxophonist, composer, bandleader, 1940-
“You’ve Got To Have Freedom” (P. Sanders)
Take 1: Live (with William Henderson, piano; James Leary, bass; Kharon Harrison, drums), Los Angeles, 2011
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Take 2: Live (with John Hicks, piano; Walter Booker, bass; Idris Muhammad, drums), Los Angeles, 1981 (Live [Evidence])
More? Here.
Jazz, R&B, gospel—listening to him you’re reminded, again, that they all come from the same place.
passings
Whitney Houston, singer, August 9, 1963-February 11, 2012
What takes your breath away isn’t the way she pulls out all the stops—lots of singers do that. It’s how she pulls back (2:00-2:35, 3:00-3:20, etc.).
“A Quiet Place,” TV show (with mother Cissy Houston looking on), 1980s
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As a girl she sang at her family’s church.
New Hope Baptist Church, Newark, New Jersey, 1970s
(First clip originally posted 7/25/10, second 1/18/12.)
one of my desert-island singers
Dorothy Love Coates (1928-2002) & the Gospel Harmonettes
“I Won’t Let Go” (AKA “I’m Just Holding On”), live
More?
And here.
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lagniappe
Here’s the original recording (Specialty, 1950s).
*****
Were gospel to be more publicly acclaimed, she [Dorothy Love Coates] might have the stature of a Billie Holiday or a Judy Garland. Instead, for thousands of black people, she is the message carrier.
—Anthony Heilbut, The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times (6th ed. 2002)
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[I]t was obvious that Keith [Richards] and Gram [Parsons] enjoyed spending time together. . . . [W]e just all cared deeply about the same things. We just loved, for instance, to sit and listen to Dorothy Love Coates, the gospel singer.
(Quotes originally posted 3/28/10.)
When the groove’s this strong, I don’t ever want it to end.
Give me another take.
And another.
Another.
Black Dub (Brian Blade, drums; Trixie Whitley, drums, vocals; Daniel Lanois, guitar, vocals; Jim Wilson, bass, vocals), “Last Time”
1: Santa Monica, 2/16/11
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2: Philadelphia, 11/18/10
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3: Vancouver, 2/2/11
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4: Hamburg, 7/21/11
With voices like these who needs microphones?
Davis Sisters, “On the Right Road,” live (TV Broadcast), c. 1964
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lagniappe
my back pages
Thirty-five years ago tonight—how could I possibly begin a sentence “thirty-five years ago tonight” and be referring to something that happened when I was, at least nominally, an adult? Well, this actually happened that night so I guess it must be possible. On that cold, clear January night, at a small church thirty miles north of Chicago, Suzanne and I were married. Yes, there was music. Tenor saxophonist Von Freeman and pianist John Young (now gone) played before and after the ceremony. The processional was Duke Ellington’s “In a Sentimental Mood,” played by Von alone. What did all this sound like? Thanks to my friend (and ace recording engineer) James C. Moore, these sounds can be heard, thirty-five years later, here (M4A—give it a few seconds).
gospel longa, politics brevis
These folks were singing long before Mitt, Newt, et al. hit town. And they’ll be singing long after they’re gone.
“If I Die Before I Wake,” Mt. Do-Well Baptist Church, McConnells, S.C.
Led by Brown’s Chapel A.M.E. Zion Church, Chester, S.C.
music clip of the day 