A reader writes:
Dear Richard:
I think you should check out the YouTube link below. From Dore Stein who is the host of a great radio show on Sat. nights on the SF United School District’s radio station, KALW.
Melos: Mediterranean Songs (filmed in Tunisia and Germany, 2011)*
*****
taking a break
I’m taking some time off—back in a while.
*****
*With Dorsaf Hamdani & Ensemble (Tunisia), En Chordais (Greece), Juan Carmona & Ensemble (Spain), Keyvan Chemirani (France/Iran), et al.
basement jukebox
The Falcons (feat. Wilson Pickett, lead vocals; Robert Ward, guitar)
“I Found A Love” (1962)
***
Albert Washington (feat. Lonnie Mack, guitar)
“Hold Me Baby” (1969)
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lagniappe
reading table
[T]he greatest reading pleasure has an element of self-annihilation. To be so engrossed that you barely know you exist. I last felt that in relation to a poem while in the sitting room of Elizabeth Bishop’s old home in rural Brazil. I stood in a corner, apart from the general conversation, and read “Under the Window: Ouro Preto.” The street outside was once an obscure thoroughfare for donkeys and peasants. Bishop reports overheard lines as people pass by her window, including the beautifully noted “When my mother combs my hair it hurts.” That same street now is filled with thunderous traffic — it fairly shakes the house. When I finished the poem I found that my friends and our hosts had left the room. What is it precisely, that feeling of “returning” from a poem? Something is lighter, softer, larger — then it fades, but never completely.
—Ian McEwan, New York Times Sunday Book Review, 12/9/12
only rock ’n’ roll
I’ve got another band for you . . .
—my (25-year-old) son Alex, earlier this week, before playing me a couple tracks off their new album (Lonerism)
Tame Impala, live (“Be Above It,” “Solitude Is Bliss,” “Endors Toi”), New York (Webster Hall), 11/10/12
Will the ’60s ever end?
Sometimes you can’t help but shout (3:05-).
Rev. James Cleveland and the Southern California Community Choir (with guest Albertina Walker), live, Chicago, 1972*
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lagniappe
random thoughts
Life isn’t short. It isn’t long, either. It’s nothing more, or less, than a series of moments, each beyond measure.
*****
*That same year Rev. Cleveland and his choir backed Aretha Franklin on Amazing Grace.
Happy 100th Birthday, Teddy!
Teddy Wilson, pianist, November 24, 1912-July 31, 1986
“Rosetta,” 1934
***
“Body and Soul,” with the Benny Goodman Trio (BG, clarinet; TW, piano; Gene Krupa, drums), 1935
***
“Foolin’ Myself,” Teddy Wilson Orchestra (TW, piano; Billie Holiday, vocals; Lester Young, tenor saxophone; Freddie Green, guitar; Jo Jones, drums, et al.), 1937
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lagniappe
radio
WKCR-FM’s celebration of his centennial, which I mentioned the other day, runs through midnight Sunday.
*****
musical thoughts
John Cage (whose centennial we recently celebrated), Conlon Nancarrow (ditto), Teddy Wilson—they’d make a helluva band.
Chicago: 1974
“Muddy Waters Blues Summit in Chicago,”* Soundstage, 1974
*Muddy Waters, Junior Wells, Pinetop Perkins, Koko Taylor, Mike Bloomfield, Johnny Winter, Dr. John, et al.
Albert Collins (1932-1993), “Lights Are On But Nobody’s Home,” live, Austin, Tx., 1988
How strange to think that Albert, a sweet, warm, gentle guy I had the good fortune to work with in the ’70s while at Alligator Records, has been gone nearly 20 years.
**********
lagniappe
musical thoughts
There’s one cat I’m still trying to get across to people. He is really good, one of the best guitarists in the world.
only rock ’n’ roll
Metz, “Wasted”
Recording (Metz, Sub Pop), 10/12
***
Live, Canada (Sackville), 8/3/12
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Rock ’n’ roll.
R&B.
Jazz.
Whatever their differences, they’ve got something in common.
Nobody’s more important than the drummer.
If the drums aren’t happening, nothing is.
*****
reading table: passings
“The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart”
How astonishing it is that language can almost mean,
and frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say,
God, we say, Rome and Michiko, we write, and the words
get it all wrong. We say bread and it means according
to which nation. French has no word for home,
and we have no word for strict pleasure. A people
in northern India is dying out because their ancient
tongue has no words for endearment. I dream of lost
vocabularies that might express some of what
we no longer can. Maybe the Etruscan texts would
finally explain why the couples on their tombs
are smiling. And maybe not. When the thousands
of mysterious Sumerian tablets were translated,
they seemed to be business records. But what if they
are poems or psalms? My joy is the same as twelve
Ethiopian goats standing silent in the morning light.
O Lord, thou art slabs of salt and ingots of copper,
as grand as ripe barley lithe under the wind’s labor.
Her breasts are six white oxen loaded with bolts
of long-fibered Egyptian cotton. My love is a hundred
pitchers of honey. Shiploads of thuya are what
my body wants to say to your body. Giraffes are this
desire in the dark. Perhaps the spiral Minoan script
is not language but a map. What we feel most has
no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses, and birds.*****
“By Small and Small: Midnight to Four A.M.”
For eleven years I have regretted it,
regretted that I did not do what
I wanted to do as I sat there those
four hours watching her die. I wanted
to crawl in among the machinery
and hold her in my arms, knowing
the elementary, leftover bit of her
mind would dimly recognize it was me
carrying her to where she was going.—Jack Gilbert, February 18, 1925-November 11, 2012
two takes
Whatever it is, this guy’s got it.
Isaiah Owens, “You Without Sin Cast the First Stone”
Recording, 2004
*****
Live (with talk), New York, 2004 (trailer, Pray and Get Ready, scheduled for 2013 release)
only rock ’n’ roll
The Dirtbombs, live, Hamtramck, Mich. (outside Detroit), 2012
#1
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