Happy (96th) Birthday, Billie!
Tune in to WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University) and you’ll swear you must’ve died and gone to heaven—it’s all Billie, all day.
Billie Holiday, “The Blues Are Brewin'” (with Louis Armstrong, trumpet), New Orleans (1947)
Vodpod videos no longer available.More? Here. And here. And here.
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lagniappe
art beat
Joan Mitchell, Chamonix (c. 1962), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Feeling glum?
Not for long.
Albert Ammons, Lena Horne, Pete Johnson, Teddy Wilson
Boogie-Woogie Dream (1944)
Part 1
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
Part 2
Vodpod videos no longer available.Western Swing Festival
Beginning on Friday, March 25th at 8:00 a.m. . . . [we] will honor the legacy of Western Swing with 64 hours of continuous programming, running until midnight on Sunday, March 27th (this will preempt all regularly scheduled programming). We will explore the genre’s entire history, from its roots in the 1920s and 1930s to bands still performing today. The festival will also include live performances and interviews with several Western Swing experts. Grab your ten-gallon hat, lace up those dancin’ boots, and come swing with us!
—WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University)
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys
“I Hear Ya Talkin'”
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
“San Antonio Rose”
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
“Take Me Back To Tulsa”
Vodpod videos no longer available.If I could dance like this, I’d never sit down.
Geri Allen Quartet (GA, piano; Kenny Davis, bass; Kassa Overall, drums; Maurice Chestnut, tap percussionist), “Philly Joe,” live, Detroit, 2009
Vodpod videos no longer available.More? Here.
Fontella Bass
Fela Anikulapo Kuti
Few musicians travel so widely—or so well.
Lester Bowie, trumpet, October 11, 1941-November 8, 1999
Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy (Steve Turre, trombone; Phillip Wilson, drums)
Live, Germany (Berlin), 1986
#1
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
#2 (Whitney Houston’s “Saving All My Love For You”)
Vodpod videos no longer available.Lester and drummer Phillip Wilson were kindred spirits. Like Lester, the drummer came out of St. Louis. And like Lester, he roamed freely. Adventurous jazz (Art Ensemble of Chicago), funky soul (Stax Records sessions), hard-rocking blues (Paul Butterfield Blues Band): to each he brought the same hands, the same feet, the same ears.
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lagniappe
Bill Cosby on Lester Bowie
Vodpod videos no longer available.Happy (108th) Birthday, Bix!
God the poet, the master of metaphor, wanting to comment on what a big, open, unruly country this is, put the birthdays of Ornette Coleman, born in 1930 in Fort Worth, Texas, and Bix Beiderbecke, born in 1903 in Davenport, Iowa, back to back.
Bix Beiderbecke, cornet, with Frankie Trumbauer and His Orchestra
“I’m Coming, Virginia,” “Way Down Yonder In New Orleans,” 1927
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lagniappe
Speaking of Bix’s playing, Louis Armstrong said:
Those pretty notes went right through me.
*****
. . . “I’m Coming, Virginia” became the most beautiful thing in my life . . . The coherence of its long Bix solo still provides me with a measure of what popular art should be like: a generosity of effects on a simple frame. The melodic line is particularly ravishing at its points of transition: there are moments when even a silent pause is a perfect note, and always there is a piercing sadness to it, as if the natural tone of the cornet, the instrument of reveille, were the first sob before weeping.
—Clive James, London Times, 5/16/07
*****
radio
Yesterday, at WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University), it was all Ornette all day; today it’s Bix. (Listening to so much Ornette seems to have rearranged my brain cells—permanently, I hope.)
(Some of this was previously posted on Bix’s last birthday.)
Happy (81st) Birthday, Ornette!
His sound—his whole approach (simple melodies, vocal phrasing, off-center intonation)—is drenched in the blues.
Ornette Coleman (alto saxophone) with The Roots
Live, London (Meltdown Festival), 2009
#1
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
#2
Vodpod videos no longer available.The tenor player at the end—that’s David Murray.
More Ornette? Here.
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lagniappe
radio
What am I listening to today?
That’s easy—WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University), where it’s all Ornette all day.
Today, in celebration of Fat Tuesday, let’s go to New Orleans.
Rebirth Brass Band, Treme Sidewalk Steppers Parade
Live, New Orleans, 2/6/11
More? Here. And here. And here.
*****
TBC Brass Band, Krewe de Vieux Parade
Live, New Orleans, 2/19/11
*****
A great brass band and a great mix have something in common. You can tell a great mix—as we used to say at Alligator Records—even from the next room. And you can tell a great brass band even from the next block.
Looking for something loud and intense?
You’ll have to, I’m afraid, look elsewhere.
Sun Ra (piano) & Walt Dickerson (vibraphone), “Astro” (Visions, 1978)
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
lagniappe
reading table
The world is half magic
—George Oppen (from “Twenty-Six Fragments”)
replay: clips too good for just one day
The other night, after falling asleep, my older son Alex (now 22) had an unexpected visitor—this guy showed up and began to play.
Vijay Iyer Trio (VI, piano; Marcus Gilmore, drums; Stephan Crump, bass)
“Galang,” recording session (Historicity), New York (Systems Two Studios), 2009
*****
“Questions of Agency,” live, New York (The Stone), 2007
*****
Playing and Talking about Historicity, 2009
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lagniappe
Presto! Here is the great new jazz piano trio.
—Ben Ratliff, New York Times (9/9/09)
(Originally posted 6/30/10.)
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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 7/2/10.)
music clip of the day 