Someday, just as I sometimes do with my own father, who’s been gone for over thirty years, my older son Alex, now twenty-three, will recall occasions, after I’m gone, when he and I went out to hear live music together, like, for instance, last night, when we saw this group, from Africa, who are on their first U.S. tour.
Group Doueh, live, England (Bristol), 5/10/11
Vodpod videos no longer available.two takes
The Mighty Clouds of Joy, “I Made A Step,” live
Switzerland (Montreux Jazz Festival), 1981
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
Nashville, 2005
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
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Greatest musical intersection in the world?
Chicago’s South Side, W. 36th St. (Honorary Sam Cooke Way, as of this month) and S. Cottage Grove Ave. (Honorary Albertina Walker & The Caravans Drive)
Photo credit: Bob Marovich, The Black Gospel Blog
only rock ’n roll
(an occasional series)
Hasil Adkins with SCOTS (Southern Culture on the Skids), “Hubcap Hunch”
Live, Sleazefest, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1994
Gospel, soul, blues—sometimes they seem inseparable.
Willie Banks and The Messengers, live, Mississippi (Jackson), 1990
“Things I Can’t Change”
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“God Is Still In Charge”
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listening room: what’s playing
• Talib Kweli, Gutter Rainbows (Javotti Media/3d)
• Art Ensemble of Chicago, Full Force (ECM)
• Anthony Braxton Quartet, (GTM) 2006 (Important Records)
• John Coltrane (with Rashied Ali), Interstellar Space (Impulse!)
• The Lester Young/Count Basie Sessions (1936-1940) (Mosaic)
• Various Artists, Ska Bonanza: The Studio One Ska Years (Heartbeat)
• Stefan Wolpe: Compositions for Piano (1920-1952), David Holzman, piano (Bridge)
• Ann Southam: Simple Lines of Enquiry, Eve Egoyan, piano (Centrediscs)
• Morton Feldman, For Bunita Marcus, Stephane Ginsburgh, piano (Sub Rosa); John Tilbury, piano, Morton Feldman, All Piano (London HALL)
• WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University)
—Bird Flight (Phil Schaap, jazz [Charlie Parker])
—Traditions in Swing (Phil Schaap, jazz)
—Out to Lunch (Various, jazz)
—Jazz Profiles (Various, jazz)
—Jazz Alternatives (Various, jazz)
—Afternoon New Music (Various, classical and hard-to-peg)
—Eastern Standard Time (Carter Van Pelt, Jamaican music)
—Rag Aur Taal (Various, Indian)
—Morning Ragas (Various, Indian)
—Amazing Grace (Various, gospel)
—Live Constructions (Various, hard-to-peg)
• WFMU-FM
—Mudd Up! (DJ/Rupture, “new bass and beats”)
—Sinner’s Crossroads (Kevin Nutt, gospel)
—Give The Drummer Some (Doug Schulkind, sui generis)
—Transpacific Sound Paradise (Rob Weisberg, “popular and unpopular music from around the world”)
—Daniel Blumin (sui generis)
—Airborne Event (Dan Boodah, sui generis)
—The Push Bin with Lou (Lou Z., sui generis)
*****
art beat
One of the great things about having friends is that they invite you to things you’d never get to, or even know about, otherwise—like, for instance, this wonderful exhibit of illustrated architecture books (dating from 1511), something I wouldn’t have gotten to but for my friend Bob Blythe.
Art forms, like animal species, become extinct.
Robert Pete Williams (1914-1980), “Scrap Iron Blues”
Live, Louisiana (Baton Rouge), 1971
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It’s difficult to approve the banalities of most blues singers after listening to Robert Pete Williams. The blues tradition is frequently cited to explain a singer’s conventionality. We see with Robert Pete Williams, however, the possibilities of the blues. He relies upon none of the cliches, either of music or of lyric, which bluesman after bluesman will invoke. He makes each song unmistakably his own and while at times his genius may seem perverse in its oddness, when he succeeds and each odd element comes together, he will convey a tone of almost unbearable sadness.
—Peter Guralnick, Feel Like Going Home (1971)
only rock ’n roll
(an occasional series)
The Dirtbombs, “Stop,” New Jersey (Asbury Lanes, Asbury Park), c. 2007
Vodpod videos no longer available.Anybody can play in tune.
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reading table
welcoming in loads
of new year’s rain . . .
trashy house—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827), trans. David G. Lanoue
What would Monday’s featured artist sound like if he’d come along a generation later?
Tyondai Braxton (Anthony’s son), “Dead Strings,” live, 2009
Part 1
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
Part 2
Vodpod videos no longer available.More? Here (with Battles, a group he’s since left).
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If you had to take five albums, books or DVDs on tour with you, which ones would they be, and why?
I picked 5 records and they are:
1. Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra & Marin Alsop: Takemitsu: The Flock Decsends Into The Pentagonal Garden
Honestly I always take this piece and the score with me on tour everywhere I go. It’s one of my favorite pieces.2. Fela Kuti: Underground System
This record is a force. Infectious.3. Black Dice: Miles Of Smiles
One of my favourites from this band. The mood it creates is wholly its own.4. Chicago Symphony Orchestra & Pierre Boulez: Boulez Conducts Varèse
Varese is where my head has been for the past couple of months. Amériques is such a mind boggling piece.5. The Bulgarian State Radio & Television Choir: Le Mystère Des Voix Bulgares 1&2
Another go-to old favorite. Stop what you’re doing and order this right now.For DVDs, the complete Six Feet Under, The Wire and Entourage. Is any other network up to the challenge to even attempt to compete with an HBO series?
Books:
Donari Braxton: The Invisible Alphabet
New novel from my brother. It’s seriously amazing. He seems to have an inexhaustible amount of ideas and has such a great sense of control in his craft. I looked to him and his work when struggling to flesh out my own.Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise
Such an incredible book. Ross fed into my already glorified view of the 20th century composers and made them into the lead characters in one of the most compelling stories I’ve ever read.John Adams: Hallelujah Junction
It’s great to hear a very down to earth narration of a composer who you respect.
*****
art beat
Lee Friedlander, Flowers and Trees (1981) (one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever seen), Tokyo 1977
serendipity
an occasional series
The other night, while I was listening to WFMU-FM, this jumped out.
Mikey Erg, “Key of C, Fix It, Fix It, Stop” (2011)
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more
“Pray For Rain”
Take 1
The Ergs! (2005)
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Take 2
Mikey Erg, live, Fest 9 (Gainesville, Florida), 2010
Vodpod videos no longer available.sui generis, adj. A person or thing that is unique, in a class by itself. E.g., Anthony Braxton, composer, reed player, professor, MacArthur “genius” grant winner, one-time professional chess hustler.
Happy (Belated 66th) Birthday, Anthony!
(born June 4, 1945)
Anthony Braxton with his 12+1tet, Ghost Trance Music
New York (Iridium), 2008
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musical thoughts
I wanted to live. I wanted to be alive. This experience goes by very quickly. Part of the radiance of a moment, in my opinion, involves that which we call music.
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Suddenly, Coltrane solos become the “it” of music, when in fact, the records and the notated solos are the sonic footprints, the bone structure of what actually happened in the music.
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I wanted a system that would be equal to the dynamics of curiosity. I wanted to have a music where I could have some fun.
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There is the wonderful discipline of music and the ability of music to keep on opening up fresh prospects. I must say, what a discipline!
—Anthony Braxton
scenes from New Orleans
an occasional series
Neville Brothers (with Irvin Mayfield, trumpet)
“Indian Red,” live, New Orleans (Jazz Fest), 5/8/11
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art beat
Lance Rosenfield, New Orleans, 2/5/08 (young Mardi Gras Indian preparing for his first Mardi Gras with the Wild Magnolias)
music clip of the day 