two takes
This just in from my older (22-year-old) son Alex:
Have you heard the new Arcade Fire? It’s incredibly good, totally different from their older stuff—poppy and catchy.
Arcade Fire, “The Suburbs”
The Suburbs (8/10)
***
live, New York (Madison Square Garden), 8/5/10
More? Here.
Happy Birthday, Pres!
Lester Young, August 27, 1909-March 15, 1959
(nicknamed “Pres” [or “Prez”] by Billie Holiday, who called him the “president of tenor saxophonists”)
Who else is at once so earthy and so ethereal?
Jammin’ the Blues (1944)
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On Lester Young
B.B. King:
***
Lee Kontiz:
***
Joe Lovano:
*****
Want more?
One of my favorite radio stations, WKCR-FM (based at Columbia University and available on-line), is celebrating Pres’s birthday in the best possible way—playing his music all day. (Actually, they’re playing his music for 36 hours straight, until the middle of the day tomorrow, when they’ll begin playing the music of Charlie Parker, whose birthday is Sunday, for the next 36 hours.)
I’m the person I see least of over the course of my life, and even what I see is not accurate.
—Gil Scott-Heron (New Yorker, 8/9/2010 [Alec Wilkinson, “New York Is Killing Me”])
Gil Scott-Heron, “I’m New Here” (2010)
More? Here.
Who would’ve thought this would be so good?
Tom Jones & Janis Joplin, “Raise Your Hand,” live (TV broadcast), 1969
I have no idea what they’re saying.
It makes no difference.
I could listen to this all day.
(That’s why God made “replay.”)
The South African Gospel Singers, live, Wales (Brecon Jazz Festival), 2006
Here’s more from the guy who, the other day, we heard live in Slovenia.
Bob Dylan, “Beyond Here Lies Nothin'” (2009)
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lagniappe
Howlin’ Wolf (with Hubert Sumlin, guitar; Hosea Lee Kennard, piano; Alfred Elkins, bass; Earl Phillips, drums), “Who’s Been Talking” (Chess Records, Chicago, 1957)
More Howlin’ Wolf? Here.
*****
lagniappe
art beat
The New Yorker (8/16/10) writes of Matisse’s Bathers by a River, which is currently on view, in the exhibit “Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917,” at the Museum of Modern Art: “it consumes at least as much aesthetic energy as it imparts.” Except when it’s on loan elsewhere, this painting hangs at Chicago’s Art Institute. Over the years I’ve seen it dozens (maybe hundreds) of times. Never once, as I looked at it, did it occur to me how much “aesthetic energy” it was “consum[ing].”
Henri Matisse, Bathers by a River (1909-16)
Last week I wrote: “Guitar, drums—that’s all it takes.”
Actually, all it takes is a single string.
Lonnie Pitchford (diddley bow), live, Mississippi, 1978 (The Land Where The Blues Began [1979])
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lagniappe
? and the Mysterians—still more (take #4 [NYC, Great Jones Cafe; 7/31/10])
*****
mail (makes me want to be [yikes!] a grandfather)
The other day Oran Etkin, whose music was featured here a while back, wrote:
I’ve been checking in every once in a while to your blog— you’ve got some really amazing and diverse music up there!
***
I wanted to let you know about a new project I have and a great video I just posted yesterday. I have a project for kids called Timbalooloo (www.timbalooloo.com), which has music classes for 0-10 year olds using a new approach I developed to reach that age group, CDs, Videos, Books, etc. I am putting out a kids CD next month called Wake Up, Clarinet! based on this whole approach. It’s with my band featuring Jason Marsalis, Curtis Fowlkes, Fabian Almazan, Garth Stevenson and Charenee Wade. Anyways, I put up this video from a live concert, and I thought you might enjoy it and see if it would be cool for your blog.
***I’m loving the videos up on the site!
—Oran
***
Oran Etkin, “Wake Up, Clarinet!”; live
Suppose Blind Willie McTell, who died in 1959, came back to life for a day.
How would you explain this to him—a video clip of a pop icon singing a song about him, during a recent concert in Slovenia, captured by a cell-phone camera then uploaded onto the ’net for anyone, anywhere in the world, to see?
Bob Dylan, “Blind Willie McTell,” live, Slovenia (Ljubljana), 6/13/2010
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lagniappe
Blind Willie McTell
hotel room, Atlanta, 1940
***
“Statesboro Blues,” 1928 (Atlanta)
three takes
I don’t often feel like listening to someone named after a punctuation mark, but when I do I know just where to turn.
? and the Mysterians, “96 Tears”
With Ronnie Spector, live, New York, 2010
*****
Live, New York (1998)
*****
TV broadcast, 1966
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langiappe
inscrutable instructions
Amazon: Express Checkout with Payphrase
To use Express Checkout on Amazon.com and across the web,
create a PayPhrase like “Richard’s Overarching Dentist”
The lineup Bambino and Group Inerane use today in the West African desert—two electric guitars, drums—is the one this guy used, 40 years ago, on Chicago’s south side.
Hound Dog Taylor, live, Chicago, 1971
Want more? Here.
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lagniappe
Spiritual Stars Singers
Silver Wings
Amazing Mentholiers
Chosen Wonders
Rev. R. Campbell and His Wonder Boy
Rhythmical Wright Singers
Willie Harris and the Sensational Six
Never heard of ’em? I hadn’t either. Now you can hear all of ’em in the latest installment of Sinner’s Crossroads (8/5/10), Kevin Nutt’s weekly “gospel extravaganza.” (This one’s so good I’ve already played it twice.)
*****
“dark dismal-dreaming night” *
Listen to the Cubs lose at four in the afternoon?
Anyone can do that.
You’ve gotta be crazy to listen to them lose at 1:00 a.m (Giants, 11th inning, 4-3).
*W. Shakespeare
music clip of the day 
