recipe
3 strings
~20 hands
~10 voices
2 feet
Mix lightly; let rise.
Malem Mustafa Bakbou, gimbri; live; Gnawa lila; Morocco (Marrekech), 1990
Want more music from Morocco? Here.
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lagniappe
reading table
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
—Samuel Beckett, Worstword Ho (1983)
Great horn players don’t play—they sing.
Pharoah Sanders (tenor saxophone, with Paul Arslanian, harmonium), “Kazuko,” live, California (Marin Headland), 1982
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Trane was the father. Pharoah was the son. I was the holy ghost.
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Want more of the late Albertina Walker?
This week’s Gospel Memories (WLUW-FM)—available here—is devoted entirely to her music.
Today, celebrating our 400th post, we revisit a few favorites.
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street music
Whatever it is, this guy’s got it.
(Originally posted on 8/25/10.)
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take two (or is it one?)
Following up on Vijay Iyer’s take (6/30/10), here’s the original.
M.I.A., “Galang” (2005)
One of the things I love about M.I.A. is that she doesn’t let any of the usual stuff get in her way. Take her dancing, for instance: she’s, uh, not real good at it—at least not by the usual standards. Does that stop her? Nah.
(Originally posted on 7/2/10.)
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Guitar, drums—that’s all it takes.
Bambino (AKA Bombino), live, Niger (Agadez), 2010
Part 1
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Part 2
(Originally posted on 8/9/10.)
Anyone can make English sound like English.
Tom Waits, live, California (Mountain View), 1999
Part 1
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Part 2
Want more? Here.
The other night I saw these two bands—both are from Africa—at Chicago’s Logan Square Auditorium.
Kenge, Kenge (Kenya), live, Denmark (Roskilde), 2008
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Khaira Arby (Mali), live, Mali (Festival of the Desert), 2010
“Haidara”
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“Sourgou”
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Scribblings from the show (habit picked up reviewing live jazz for the Chicago Reader):
Kenge Kenge’s bass player at the start of their set: “We’ve been in America for the last three months. This is our last show. And we want to have some fun.”
Drum is king.
As much as I appreciate the musical experiences available via the ’net, they’re no substitute for live music. Among the casualties of the technological filtering are bass and drums—this music’s heartbeat.
This stage isn’t a dividing line. It’s porous, readily penetrable in both directions. Those onstage come down and dance; those offstage go up and dance. When everybody’s dancing—onstage, offstage—the performer/audience line dissolves.
African music, live, is a full-body experience: you listen not just with your ears but with your hips, your feet.
If folks aren’t dancing, this music ain’t happening.
Kinetic elegance.
At times the dancers look as if they’re in a trance.
Lightness, buoyancy, drive: this is music that takes you in its arms, lifts you up, carries you away.
Mali—one of the poorest countries economically, one of the richest musically.
Amadou & Mariam
Live, Mali (Festival of the Desert), 2010
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“Dimanche A Bamako,” live (with David Gilmour, guitar), England (Islington), 2009
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“Welcome To Mali,” “Africa,” live, South Africa (Johannesburg), 2010
Want more? Here.
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I saw Amadou & Mariam, like Orchestra Baobob, with my son Alex—last year at Chicago’s Park West.
How far away does Africa seem to Alex?
About as far, I think, as South Carolina seemed to me at 23.
From a small orchestra in Germany to one in Senegal.
Orchestra Baobab, “Utru horas,” live
Here’s a big (23rd) birthday shout-out to my son Alex—with whom I saw these guys a few years ago at Chicago’s (much missed) HotHouse.
Something new to sing in the shower.
Felix del Pilar Perez Castro, “Amor Loco,” Soy Cuba (I Am Cuba, 1964)
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lagniappe
Paul Anka, “Crazy Love” (1958)
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In response to yesterday’s clips:
Amen!
replay: a clip too good for just one day
Here’s Arthur Russell, the “seminal avant-garde composer, singer-songwriter, cellist, and disco producer” who died in 1992 at the age of 40 (of AIDS-related complications) and is the subject of both a recent documentary, Wild Combination, and a new book, Hold On To Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene, 1973-1992.
Arthur Russell
“Get Around To It”
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“You And Me Both”
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“This Is How We Walk on the Moon”
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“That’s Us/Wild Combination”
(Yeah, the fact that I’m posting four tracks by this guy shows how much his music, which I just encountered recently, has been getting under my skin.)
(Originally posted on 11/23/09.)
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[Russell’s] various distinctions—folkie, art-music songwriter and improviser, dance-club maven—seem incoherent until you hear several of his records. When musicians get angry about being categorized by critics, I usually feel frustrated: readers, after all, want to know what the record sounds like. With Russell, I take the musicians’ angle. Just listen to it and you’ll understand.
—Ben Ratliff, “The Many Faces, and Grooves, of Arthur Russell,” New York Times, 2/29/04
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For Arthur, there was no cachet to being eclectic. Rather, he played across genre because it would have required a colossal and entirely counterproductive effort on his part to stick to one sound. . . . Drifting into an ethereal, gravity-defying zone, Arthur had come to embody the interconnectivity of music.
—Tim Lawrence, Hold On To Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene, 1973-1992 (2009)
Here’s a MCOTD first—music by someone who’s been featured previously (here, here, here, here, here) as a visual artist.
William Eggleston, piano
Live (Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me [forthcoming])
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Live, Japan (Tokyo, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art), 2010
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lagniappe
art beat
William Eggleston
