One-word review: Wow!
Peter Evans/Being and Becoming (PE, trumpet; Joel Ross, vibraphone, electronics; Nick Jozwiak, bass, electronics; Michael Shwekwoaga Ode, drums), live, Germany (Berlin), 2024
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Chicago (Columbus Park)
Happy (103rd) Birthday, Charles!
Charles Mingus Sextet (CM, 4/22/1922–1/5/1979, bass, compositions; Eric Dolphy, 1928-1964, alto saxophone; Clifford Jordan, 1931-1993, tenor saxophone; Johnny Coles, 1925-1987, trumpet; Jaki Byard, 1922-1999, piano; Dannie Richmond, 1931-1988, drums), live, Belgium,* Norway,** Sweden,*** 1964
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lagniappe
radio
WKCR-FM (Columbia University): all Mingus, all day.
*****
* “So Long Eric,” “Peggy’s Blue Skylight,” “Meditations on Integration”
** “So Long Eric,” “Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk,” “Parkeriana,” “Take The ‘A’ Train”
*** “So Long Eric” (performance and rehearsal), “Meditations on Integration” (performance and rehearsal)
Happy (110th) Birthday, Billie!
Billie Holiday, “I Can’t Get Started” (V. Duke, I. Gershwin), with Buck Clayton (trumpet), Dickie Wells (trombone), Lester Young (clarinet/tenor saxophone), Margaret “Queenie” Johnson (piano), Freddie Green (guitar), Walter Page (bass), Jo Jones (drums), September 15, 1938, New York
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lagniappe
radio
WKCR-FM (Columbia University): all Billie, all day.
*****
reading table
The Day Lady Died
By Frank O’Hara (1926-1966)It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don’t know the people who will feed meI walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days
I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn’t even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan’s new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres
of Genet, but I don’t, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandarinessand for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on itand I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing
passings
George Freeman (guitarist), April 10, 1927-April 1, 2025
Birth Sign,* 1970 (Delmark Records)
When, fifty years ago, I first heard this album, I thought it was wonderful. I still do.
*****
*1. “Mama, Papa, Brother” 2. “Cough It Up” 3. “My Scenery” 4. “Must Be, Must Be” 5. “Birth Sign” 6. “Hoss” 7. “My Ship”
George Freeman, guitar; Lester Lashley, trombone (track 4); Von Freeman (brother, MCOTD Hall of Fame), tenor saxophone (tracks 2-3, 6-7); Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre, tenor saxophone (track 4); Sonny Burke, organ (tracks 1–6); Robert Pierce, organ (track 4); Billy Mitchell, drums
what’s new
Paal Nilssen-Love (drums, percussion), Jim O’Rourke (guitar), Ken Vandermark (reeds), live, Japan (Club Sakuraza, Kofu), 2024 (published 3/10/25)
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Illinois
sounds of 1940
Raymond Scott And His Orchestra (feat. Walter Gross, piano), “Creepy Weepy” (R. Scott), 1940
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Oak Park, Illinois
From Miles Davis to the NYC Subway: The Forgotten Jazz Legend Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre (Danilo Parra, director), published (YouTube) 2/20/25
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Illinois
Some performances just keep building, getting better, and better, and better.
Steve Coleman Five Elements (SC, alto saxophone, compositions; Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet; Anthony Tidd, bass; Sean Rickman, drums; Kokayi, vocals), live, Spain (Donostia San Sebastian), 2022
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Chicago
my back pages
On a cold, snowy night forty-eight years ago, at a church thirty miles north of Chicago, my wife, Suzanne, and I were married. Tenor saxophonist Von Freeman (1923-2012, MCOTD Hall of Fame) and pianist John Young (1922-2008) provided the music, playing before the ceremony (“Over the Rainbow,” “It Never Entered My Mind,” “More”); during (Duke Ellington’s “In a Sentimental Mood” [unaccompanied saxophone], as Suzanne walked down the aisle), and after (“My Favorite Things,” “Song for My Father”). All of what they played that night can be heard here (0:14-).
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Chicago
what’s new
Marshall Allen (1924-, alto saxophone, composition), “New Dawn” (Knoel Scott, lyrics), feat. Neneh Cherry (vocals), published 1/15/25
music clip of the day 