guitar players who sound like nobody else, part 3
Sonny Sharrock (1940-1994)
Live (with Melvin Gibbs, bass; Abe Speller & Pheeroan Aklaf, drums), New York (Knitting Factory), 1988
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“Who Does She Hope To Be?” (with Pharoah Sanders, tenor saxophone; Charles Moffett, bass; Elvin Jones, drums), 1991
guitar players who sound like nobody else, part 2
Derek Bailey (1930-2005)
With tap-dancer Will Gaines, live, 1995
Want more of Will Gaines? Here.
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Playing (and talking) for friends, New York, 2001
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With the Shaking Ray Levis, live, New York, 2003
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“Laura,” 2002
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lagniappe
Playing music is not really susceptible to theory much. Circumstances affect it so much.
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Personally, I`ve found that the kind of thing that I like is going into somebody else’s area and not playing their music but doing whatever I do in their area.
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I like duos with percussionists. I like the songs that percussionists sing.
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You can’t always wait for a composer to write the music you want to play.
—Derek Bailey
guitar players who sound like nobody else, part 1
John Fahey (1939-2001)
“On the Sunny Side of the Ocean,” live, Germany (Hamburg), 1978
She is—to borrow from Duke Ellington—beyond category.
Patsy Cline, live (TV broadcasts)
“Three Cigarettes (In An Ashtray),” 1957
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“Crazy,” 1962
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“I Fall To Pieces,” 1963
Here’s a big (60th!) birthday shout-out to my brother Don.
How could we ever have gone wrong musically, given where we started?
Perry Como, “Hot Diggity (Dog Ziggity Boom),” live (TV broadcast), 1956
Sometimes you don’t feel like Beethoven.
Or Miles Davis.
Or the Soul Stirrers.
What you want is a jolt.
Micachu & The Shapes, “Lips”
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lagniappe
This is what I call PR.
[Mica Levi of Micachu & The Shapes is] the most singular artist leading the future-pop frontier, with an instinctual understanding of music only possible from one of those rare lives where rhythms, melodies, discord and noise have underpinned every last waking second.
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Born in Guildford and raised in Watford, Mica Levi couldn’t have had much more of a musical upbringing if she was conceived between Mozart and an oboe and forced to grow up inside a grand piano.
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‘Lips’ is a short, sharp procession of maddening fret-hits and taunting vocal refrains that lead you everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
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live music on the radio
One of my favorite radio stations, WFMU-FM, is broadcasting live today from the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona: the Almighty Defenders, Cold Cave, Van Dyke Parks, et al.
Here’s a piece that sounds different every time you hear it.
John Cage, 4’ 33” (1952)/David Tudor, piano
lagniappe
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I didn’t wish it [4′ 33″] to appear, even to me, as something easy to do or as a joke. I wanted to mean it utterly and be able to live with it.
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Until I die there will be sounds. And they will continue following my death. One need not fear about the future of music.
—John Cage
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Thank you so much for this.
—Robert Ambrose (in response to an email letting him know that he and Bent Frequency were featured here)
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art beat
Tomorrow’s the last day to see the William Eggleston exhibit at Chicago’s Art Institute.
These guys sounded awfully good the other day—let’s hear some more.
Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue, “Orleans & Claiborne,” live, New Orleans, 2010
There are a lot of things to like about this performance. One is the way Shorty, following two hot solos (tenor, baritone), doesn’t try to out-blow those guys. Instead, he changes directions (3:20). Sometimes nothing packs more punch than restraint. (Yeah, I don’t know why this clip cuts off when it does, either.)
Want more? Here.
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lagniappe
passings
Soon I’ll be leaving for a funeral—my uncle, Hugh Frebault. Nine days ago we sat and talked and laughed for over an hour; now he’s silent. Does life get any more understandable as you get older? I don’t think so—if anything, it seems to become only more mysterious, more unfathomable.
Blind Willie Johnson, “Dark Was The Night – Cold Was The Ground” (1927, Dallas)
no redeeming value whatsoever
Andre Williams & His Orchestra, “Sweet Little Pussycat” (1966)
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Andre Williams, 2010
New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, 2010/part 2
Scene 1: Parade of the New Orleans Social Aid and Pleasure Club
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Scene 2: Chouval Bwa
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Scene 3: Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue, “Backatown” (record-store performance)
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Scene 4: Pinettes Brass Band (outside another record store)
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lagniappe
music clip of the day 
