Some folks talk sports when they get their hair cut. Rachael and I talk music. And invariably I walk out of there not only with shorter hair but bigger ears, having heard about someone from this 20-something stylist* that, walking in, I knew nothing about—like these guys, for instance.
The Books, “Enjoy Your Worries, You May Never Have Them Again” (2008)
Want more of Rachael’s picks? Here. Here.
*Rachael Zalutsky, Couvert, 2217 N. Halsted, Chicago, 773.248.6101
replay: a clip too good for just one day
Muddy Waters, Saul Bellow, Steppenwolf Theater Company (John Malkovich, John Mahoney, Gary Sinise, Laurie Metcalf, et al.), Curtis Mayfield: a lot of great artists, musical and otherwise, have come out of Chicago in the last 50 years. Among the greatest is this group: the Art Ensemble of Chicago. While the horn players (Roscoe Mitchell, Joseph Jarman, Lester Bowie) got the lion’s share of the attention, what gave their music its juice—what made it dance—was (as you’ll hear) one of the finest rhythm sections ever: Malachi Favors, bass; Don Moye, drums.
Art Ensemble of Chicago, live, Poland (Warsaw), 1982 (in four parts)
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
(I talk about the AEC in the past tense because, while recordings are still released under this name from time to time, with two key members [they were all “key members”] now dead—trumpeter Lester Bowie [1999] and bassist Malachi Favors [2004]—it just isn’t [nor could it be] the same.)
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subscribe
Many things in life don’t quite seem, alas, to live up to their billing. It appears that the RSS (Real Simple Syndication) service that’s referenced in the righthand column (under “Subscribe”) may fall into this category—at least, that is, for those of us who are (as the expression goes) of a certain age. The problem seems to lie at the threshold: “real simple.”
Anyway, in the life’s-too-short, keep-it-simple-stupid department, if you’d like to “subscribe” to this blog, just send me an email (Richard McLeese/rmcleeselaw@aol.com) with “subscribe” in the subject line and—voila!—you’ll be added to an ever-growing email list that will have you receiving an e-notice whenever there’s a new blog post. As indicated in the “About” section (see righthand column), this whole thing started from a very small (like, oh, two, sometimes three, folks) email list, which then grew, then grew some more. One of many miraculous things about electronic communication is that there’s always room for one more.
(Originally posted 9/8/09.)
We still have this song . . .
—my 19-year-old son Luke, at the end of a long, hard day—one full of setbacks—as he played this (again) on the car CD player
Mike Posner, “You Don’t Have To Leave” (2009)
Want more? Here.
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.
music clip of the day 
