only rock ‘n’ roll
The Avantist, “Ramses,” live (studio performance), Hickory Hills, Ill., 2014
**********
lagniappe
reading table
I am obliged to perform in complete darkness
operations of great delicacy
on my self.—John Berryman (1914-1972, MCOTD Hall of Fame), Dream Song 67
old school
The Consolers (Iola & Sullivan Pugh), live (TV show), early 1960s
**********
lagniappe
art beat
Bruce Davidson (1933-), New York (Subway), 1980s
Open Minds: Chris Potter Underground (with CP, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet; Craig Taborn, keyboards; Adam Rogers, guitar; Nate Smith, drums), 2012
Music documentaries can go wrong in so many ways. Too much talk. Talk that reminds you, repeatedly, why musicians aren’t paid to speak. Mediocre sound. This one, which I bumped into yesterday, seems to avoid them all.
two takes
“I Don’t Claim To Be An Angel”
Laura Cantrell, live (studio performance), New York, 2011
***
Kitty Wells (1919-2012), live (TV show), c. 1953
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)
***
“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)
**********
lagniappe
random thoughts: New Year’s resolution #5
Each day: begin, again.
Merry Christmas
Bessie Smith (with Joe Smith, cornet; Charlie Green, trombone; Fletcher Henderson, piano), “At the Christmas Ball,” 1925
*****
Blind Lemon Jefferson, “Christmas Eve Blues,” 1928
*****
Victoria Spivey (with Lonnie Johnson, guitar), “Christmas Morning Blues,” 1928
*****
Leroy Carr, “Christmas In Jail—Ain’t That A Pain,” 1929
*****
Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers (feat. Charles Brown, vocals, keyboards), “Merry Christmas, Baby,” 1947
*****
Lowell Fulson, “Lonesome Christmas (I & II),” 1950
*****
Sonny Boy Williamson II, “Sonny Boy’s Christmas Blues,” 1951
*****
John Lee Hooker, “Blues For Christmas,” 1959
genius at play
Henry Threadgill (alto saxophonist, composer, bandleader) leading a master class (excerpt), Big Indian, N.Y. (Creative Music Studio), 2014
***
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.
**********
lagniappe
art beat: more from Friday at the Art Institute of Chicago
Claude Monet (1840-1926), Irises (1914/17)
*****
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.
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
***
Here’s another take.
Live, Paris, 2012
**********
lagniappe
art beat
Bruce Davidson (1933-), New York (Subway), 1980
old school
Dixie Hummingbirds, We Love You Like a Rock (excerpts), 1995
***
***
***
***
**********
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.
only rock ‘n’ roll
Ajax, live, Boston, 2014
