jazz | music clip of the day

Thursday, 6/24/10

Greatest prison band of all time?

No contest.

Who could beat the one that Art Pepper and this guy—both followed Charlie Parker down the path of heroin addiction—led in the 1960s at San Quentin?

Frank Morgan (alto saxophone, with Claude Black, piano; Clifford Murphy, bass; Sean Dobbins, drums), “Well You Needn’t,” live, Ohio (Toledo), 2006

lagniappe

The greatest big band I ever played with was in San Quentin. Art Pepper and I were proud of that band. We had Jimmy Bunn and Frank Butler [whom Jo Jones called “the greatest drummer in the world”], and some other musicians who were known and some who weren’t, but they could play. We played every Saturday night for what they called a Warden’s Tour, which showed paying visitors only the cleanest cell blocks and exercise yards. But people would take that tour just to hear the band.

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Art and I played more when we were in San Quentin together than when we were on the outside.

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Art led the way for me to recover. He got out of prison before me and started traveling all over the world before I did. He showed me by example that it could be done, and I’ll always love him for that.

—Frank Morgan

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Monday, 6/21/10

My favorite alto sax player?

There are days when I’d say this is the guy.

Art Pepper, September 1, 1925-June 15, 1982

“Red Car” (excerpt), live (Art Pepper: Notes From A Jazz Survivor [1982])

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“Mambo Koyama,” live, Italy, 1981

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“What’s New?” (1956)

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“Over the Rainbow” (1982)

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lagniappe

The epigraph to Straight Life: The Story of Art Pepper by Art and Laurie Pepper (1979):

What is the use of talking and there is no end of talking,
There is no end of things in the heart.

—Ezra Pound [“Exile’s Letter,” from the Chinese poet Li Po; as punctuated in SL]

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Saturday, 6/19/10

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.)

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2010

Wednesday, 6/16/10

movies/part 3

Once upon a time, before the Gulf oil spill, before Katrina, there was a city . . .

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New Orleans (1947)

Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong

“Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans?”

Want more Billie Holiday? Here. Here.

More Louis Armstrong? Here.

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lagniappe

The impact of the oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill now soiling the Louisiana shoreline was felt far inland on Thursday as P&J Oyster Company, the country’s oldest oyster processor and distributor, ceased its shucking operations.

“The bottom line is that the guys that we purchase from are not working,” said Sal Sunseri, referring to the oyster harvesters who’ve been idled by the mass closure of harvesting areas and freshwater diversions. “Today’s our last day of shucking.”

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“Having the guy down the street deliver oysters that were shucked just that morning to our doorstep is an amazing thing,” said John Besh, who featured P&J Oysters at his five New Orleans area restaurants. “The relationship is so valuable, knowing that I can count on them to source the best oysters from the saltiest areas and deliver them in a consistent, uniform manner.”

“They provide wonderful oysters,” said Darin Nesbit, chef at the Bourbon House, whose relationship with P&J is so tight Sal Sunseri helped shuck oysters the first night the restaurant opened following Hurricane Katrina. “Even in times of trouble, they’ve always taken care of us.”

P&J was started in 1876 by John Popich, a Croatian immigrant who took on partner Joseph Jurisich at the turn of the century. In 1921, Popich and Jurisich purchased a shucking house at the corner of Toulouse and North Rampart streets. Alfred Sunseri, the current owners’ grandfather, who was married to Popich’s cousin, joined the company soon after.

—Brett Anderson, “P&J looks to bring oysters in from the West Coast for the first time In its 134 years,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, 6/10/10

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mail

You’re right, not only can’t you lip-synch this stuff; you can’t really sing it if you don’t know it in your heart. That’s why it’s sooooo good. [The Pilgrim Jubilees, 6/13/10]

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2010

Tuesday, 6/15/10

movies/part 2

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Stormy Weather (1943)

Cab Calloway and His Orchestra; Nicholas Brothers, dancers; “Jumpin’ Jive”

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lagniappe

Fred Astaire told the [Nicholas] brothers that the “Jumpin’ Jive” number in Stormy Weather was the greatest number he had ever seen on film. He would have been more impressed had he known that the choreography was filmed all in one take.

—Constance Valis Hill, Tap Dancing America: A Cultural History (2010)

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Want more tap-dancing?

Here (Will Gaines).

Here (Marilyn Miller).

Here (Teddy Hale, Gregory Hines, Will Gaines).

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2010

Monday, 6/14/10

movies/part 1

I feel a rhythmic brainstorm comin’ on . . .

—Slim Gaillard

Hellzapoppin’ (1941)

Slim Gaillard, piano, guitar; Slam Stewart, bass; Rex Stewart, drums; Elmer Fane, clarinet; Jap Jones, trombone; C.P. Johnston, drums; Harlem Congeroos, dancers

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2010

Friday, June 11, 2010

music to levitate by

Dizzy Gillespie & Louis Armstrong, “Umbrella Man,” live (TV broadcast), 1959

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2010

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

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

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2010

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

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