Friday, January 2nd
two takes
“I Don’t Claim To Be An Angel”
Laura Cantrell, live (studio performance), New York, 2011
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Kitty Wells (1919-2012), live (TV show), c. 1953
music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Category: guitar
2015
2015
Thursday, January 1st
What better way to start the year than with the music of Sly Stone?
Steven Bernstein’s Millennial Territory Orchestra (Steven Bernstein, trumpet; John Medeski, organ, et al.), live, Paris, 2011
“Stand” (feat. Sandra St. Victor, vocals)
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“Everyday People” (feat. Eric Mingus, vocals)
*****
Still, after four decades, this album remains on my desert-island list.
Sly and the Family Stone, Fresh, 1973
1. In Time (0:00)
2. If You Want Me To Stay (5:48)
3. Let Me Have It All (8:48)
4. Frisky (11:43)
5. Thankful ‘N’ Thoughtful (14:54)
6. Skin I’m In (19:36)
7. I Don’t Know (Satisfaction) (22:29)
8. Keep On Dancin’ (26:23)
9. Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be) (28:45)
10. If It Were Left Up To Me (34:07)
11. Babies Makin’ Babies (36:07)
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lagniappe
random thoughts: New Year’s resolution #5
Each day: begin, again.
2014
Thursday, December 25th
Merry Christmas
Bessie Smith (with Joe Smith, cornet; Charlie Green, trombone; Fletcher Henderson, piano), “At the Christmas Ball,” 1925
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Blind Lemon Jefferson, “Christmas Eve Blues,” 1928
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Victoria Spivey (with Lonnie Johnson, guitar), “Christmas Morning Blues,” 1928
*****
Leroy Carr, “Christmas In Jail—Ain’t That A Pain,” 1929
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Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers (feat. Charles Brown, vocals, keyboards), “Merry Christmas, Baby,” 1947
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Lowell Fulson, “Lonesome Christmas (I & II),” 1950
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Sonny Boy Williamson II, “Sonny Boy’s Christmas Blues,” 1951
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John Lee Hooker, “Blues For Christmas,” 1959
2014
Monday, December 22nd
genius at play
Henry Threadgill (alto saxophonist, composer, bandleader) leading a master class (excerpt), Big Indian, N.Y. (Creative Music Studio), 2014
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More.
Henry Threadgill and His Very Very Circus, “Too Much Sugar for a Dime,” live, New York, c. 1993
*****
Today Henry, who’s been lifting my spirits for over three decades, enters the MCOTD Hall of Fame, joining tenor saxophonist Von Freeman, trumpeter Lester Bowie, poets John Berryman, William Bronk, and Wislawa Szymborska, and gospel singer Dorothy Love Coates.
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lagniappe
art beat: more from Friday at the Art Institute of Chicago
Claude Monet (1840-1926), Irises (1914/17)
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radio
One of my favorite musical events begins tonight: the annual Bach Festival on WKCR (Columbia University), which runs through midnight New Year’s Eve.
2014
Friday, December 19th
what’s new
D’Angelo and the Vanguard (Pino Palladino, bass; Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, drums, et al.), “Ain’t That Easy” (Black Messiah), 12/15/14
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Here’s another take.
Live, Paris, 2012
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lagniappe
art beat
Bruce Davidson (1933-), New York (Subway), 1980
2014
Sunday, December 14th
old school
Dixie Hummingbirds, We Love You Like a Rock (excerpts), 1995
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lagniappe
reading table
You would think that living is a kind of scholarship in time, and that the longer we live the more expert we become at coping with it, in the way that, if you play tennis enough, you get used to coping with faster and faster serves. Instead I find that the longer I live the more bemused I become, and the more impenetrable the subject shows itself to be. I sit on a heap of days.
—Samantha Harvey, Dear Thief (James Wood, “Fly Away,” New Yorker, 12/8/14)
*****
taking a break
I’m taking some time off—back in a while.
2014
Friday, December 5th
only rock ‘n’ roll
Ajax, live, Boston, 2014
2014
Wednesday, December 3rd
sounds of New York (day two)
Here, as in the city itself, density and spaciousness coexist.
Tim Berne’s Cornered,* “Embraceable Me,” live, New York, 10/12/14
*TB, alto saxophone; Oscar Noriega, clarinets; Ryan Ferreira, guitar; Matt Mitchell, piano; Michael Formanek, bass; Ches Smith, drums, vibraphone.
2014
Saturday, November 29th
alone
Tashi Dorji, live (WFMU performance space), Jersey City, N.J., 9/7/14
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lagniappe
reading table
‘Like manufacturers’ instructions. In case of failure, try words.’
—Penelope Fitzgerald, Offshore
2014
Friday, November 28th
only rock ‘n’ roll
Couldn’t make it to Paris? (Me neither.)
St. Vincent, live, Paris, 10/31/14
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lagniappe
reading table
Most of the time I think of the self as a snare, and I don’t like being trapped in it. I try to reach out beyond my pittance of experience and connect to the world, but it turns out one way to do that is to be honest and accurate about my own life. I’m not convinced the personal is all that unique, anyway. It sometimes seems immoderate to claim really exceptional personal experiences, even though some of those experiences, particularly the painful ones, leave you with the worst feelings of isolation, feelings that have all the character of an absolutely individual, completely unprecedented experience—but you always find out that you aren’t alone. There are others, lots of others.
—Charles D’Ambrosio, email interview, New Yorker blog, 11/26/14
music clip of the day 