music clip of the day

jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more

Category: jazz

2011

Thursday, 2/3/11

Music, like people, comes in all kinds. Some is easy to embrace, some thorny. I wouldn’t want to live without either.

Milton Babbitt, May 10, 1916-January 29, 2011

About Time, Alan Feinberg, piano

Vodpod videos no longer available.

***

String Quartet No. 2, Composers Quartet

Vodpod videos no longer available.

**********

lagniappe

His music can be playful, too.

Semi-Simple Variations, The Bad Plus

Vodpod videos no longer available.

*****

If you know anybody who knows more popular music of the ’20s or ’30s than I do, I want to know who it is. I grew up playing every kind of music in the world, and I know more pop music from the ’20s and ’30s, it’s because of where I grew up. We had to imitate Jan Garber one night; we had to imitate Jean Goldkette the next night. We heard everything from the radio; we had to do it all by ear. We took down their arrangements; we stole their arrangements; we transcribed them, approximately. We played them for a country club dance one night and for a high school dance the next.

—Milton Babbitt

Leave a comment
2011

Monday, 1/31/11

Roy Eldridge, January 30, 1911-February 26, 1989

No you, no me.

—Dizzy Gillespie

“I Can’t Get Started,” live (TV broadcast), 1958

Vodpod videos no longer available.

***

“After You’ve Gone,” 1937

Vodpod videos no longer available.

***

“Wabash Stomp,” 1937

Vodpod videos no longer available.

***

“Let Me Off Uptown” (Gene Krupa Orchestra with Anita O’Day), 1942

Vodpod videos no longer available.

**********

lagniappe

radio Roy Eldridge

WKCR-FM’s centennial birthday celebration, mentioned yesterday, continues until midnight.

Leave a comment
2011

Sunday, 1/30/11

They don’t just sing about—they take you on—a journey.

“Heavenly Home (Got to Take a Journey),” live, Langrun Branch Baptist Church, York, South Carolina

Vodpod videos no longer available.

More? Here. And here.

**********

lagniappe

Happy (100th) Birthday, Roy!

For two full days—all day today and tomorrow—WCKR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University) celebrates the birthday of trumpeter Roy Eldridge. (I’m listening as I type this—delicious!)


Leave a comment
2011

Saturday, 1/22/11

Thirty-four years ago, on a cold Saturday night, in a church about
thirty miles north of Chicago, tenor saxophonist Von Freeman played this, unaccompanied, at our wedding.

Sonny Rollins (tenor saxophone) with The Modern Jazz Quartet (John Lewis, piano; Milt Jackson, vibraphone; Percy Heath, bass; Kenny Clarke, drums), “In A Sentimental Mood” (Duke Ellington), 1953

Vodpod videos no longer available.
Leave a comment
2011

Tuesday, 1/11/11

[D]ance first and think afterwards . . . . It’s the natural order.

—Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (English-language premiere, 1955)

Al Minns & Leon James, New York (Savoy Ballroom, Harlem), 1950s

Vodpod videos no longer available.

**********

lagniappe

art beat

Helen Levitt, New York, c. 1940

Leave a comment
2011

Monday, 1/10/11

Happy Birthday, Max!

No drummer is more clear, more precise, more melodic.

Max Roach, January 10, 1924-August 16, 2007

“The Third Eye,” live

Vodpod videos no longer available.

***

“The Drum Also Waltzes” (Drums Unlimited), 1966

Vodpod videos no longer available.

***

With Sonny Rollins (saxophone), “St. Thomas” (Saxophone Colossus), 1956

Vodpod videos no longer available.

***

With Clifford Brown (trumpet), “Sweet Clifford” (Brown and Roach Incorporated), 1955

Vodpod videos no longer available.

***

With Dizzy Gillespie (trumpet), Charlie Parker (saxophone), Bud Powell (piano), Charles Mingus (bass), “Salt Peanuts,” live, 1953

Vodpod videos no longer available.

**********

lagniappe

musical thoughts

In this music, you have to find out who you are, what you feel, what you want to say. That’s one of the reasons that it’s so American. You have to be yourself.

That’s also one way jazz is different from classical music. In classical music, you learn to study and come up with the finest interpretation of a work that you can. That’s a different way of expressing your personality. You have to learn to use what’s written already to express yourself. In jazz, you have to learn to be who you are, and create the music from that.

—Max Roach (in Gene Santoro, Highway 61 Revisited [2004])

*****

radio

Today it’s all Max all day at WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University).


Leave a comment
2011

Tuesday, 1/4/11

Talk about a one-two punch.

9/10
The MacArthur Foundation awards him a “genius grant.”

12/10
The Village Voice, in its annual Jazz Critics’ Poll, names his album Ten the year’s best. 

Jason Moran (piano) and the Bandwagon (Tarus Mateen, bass; Nasheet Waits, drums), live, Virginia (Rosslyn), 9/11/10

Vodpod videos no longer available.

**********

lagniappe

fathers and sons

While still a teenager, Moran began studying with Jaki Byard—a relationship that lasted four years.

*****

reading table

I’m interested in how close our orderly lives are to utter chaos.

—Scott Spencer

Leave a comment
2010

Tuesday, 12/14/10

This guy moved to Chicago, after World War II, from Birmingham, Alabama.

The temperature outside, on this mid-December day, is 7 degrees.

Is it any wonder springtime meant so much?

Sun Ra And His Intergalactic Myth Science Solar Arkestra, “Springtime Again,” 1979

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Want more? Here.

**********

lagniappe

Happy (90th) Birthday to Clark Terry!

(Yo, Michael: Thanks for the tip!)

Leave a comment
2010

Saturday, 12/11/10

The older you get, the more time you don’t have.

—James Moody

James Moody, March 26, 1925-December 9, 2010

“Easy Living” (with Barry Harris, piano; Bob Cranshaw, bass; Alan Dawson, drums), 1969 (I have no idea why, but this track, on my Mac, seems to play much better with Safari than Firefox.)

Vodpod videos no longer available.

With Moody, it’s all meat—there’s nothing superfluous.

Want more? Here.

**********

lagniappe

radio

WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University) pays tribute to Moody through noon (EST) today.

Leave a comment
2010

Tuesday, 12/7/10

The history of jazz, I once thought (like a lot of folks), is a story of progress. The shift from swing to bebop, for example, wasn’t simply a change; it was an advance. What bunk.

Erskine Hawkins Orchestra, “Swinging in Harlem,” 1938

Leave a comment