New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, 2010/part 1
Scene 1: Sousaphone Parade
*****
Scene 2: Brian Blade & The Fellowship
Want more Brian Blade? Here.
*****
Scene 3: Mardi Gras Indians (Members of the Golden Star Hunters, Carrolton Hunters, et al.), Backstage
Want more Mardi Gras Indians? Here.
**********
lagniappe
Happy (111th) Birthday, Duke!
At least one day out of the year all musicans should just put their instruments down, and give thanks to Duke Ellington.
—Miles Davis
Duke Ellington and His Orchestra
“C Jam Blues,” 1942
*****
“Mood Indigo,” “Sophisticated Lady,” “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing),” “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” 1943
lagniappe
It is becoming increasingly difficult to decide where jazz starts or where it stops, where Tin Pan Alley begins and jazz ends, or even where the borderline lies between between classical music and jazz. I feel there is no boundary line.
—Duke Ellington
*****
Radio Ellington: All Duke, All Day
WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University)
Happy Birthday, Mingus!
No jazz composer since Thelonious Monk has a stronger voice.
Lyrical beauty, inexhaustible drive, deep feeling: what more could you ask for?
Enormously influential, his music served as a bridge between the compositional elegance of Duke Ellington and the freewheeling rambunctiousness of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Henry Threadgill, David Murray, et al.
Charles Mingus Quintet (CM, bass; Dannie Richmond, drums; Eric Dolphy, alto saxophone, bass clarinet; Clifford Jordan, tenor saxophone; Jaki Byard, piano), live (TV broadcast), Belgium, 1964
“So Long, Eric”
*****
“Peggy’s Blue Skylight”
*****
“Meditations on Integration” (excerpt)
Want more? Here.
**********
lagniappe
. . . [Mingus’s] music was pledged to the abolition of all distinctions: between the composed and the improvised, the primitive and the sophisticated, the rough and the tender, the belligerent and the lyrical.—Geoff Dyer, But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz (1996)
*****
Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.
***
I, myself, came to enjoy the players who didn’t only just swing but who invented new rhythmic patterns, along with new melodic concepts. And those people are: Art Tatum, Bud Powell, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie and Charles Parker, who is the greatest genius of all to me because he changed the whole era around.
***
In my music, I’m trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it’s difficult is because I’m changing all the time.
—Charles Mingus
*****
Radio Mingus: all Mingus, all the time
In celebration of Mingus’s birthday, WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University) is playing his music all day.
Bob Dylan/1965, part 3
“Like A Rolling Stone,” live (with Mike Bloomfield, guitar; Jerome Arnold, bass; Barry Goldberg, piano; Al Kooper, organ; Sam Lay, drums), Newport Folk Festival, July, 1965
*****
Press Conference, San Francisco, December, 1965
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Bob Dylan/1965, part 2
“Maggie’s Farm,” live (with Mike Bloomfield, guitar; Jerome Arnold, bass; Barry Goldberg, piano; Al Kooper, organ; Sam Lay, drums), Newport Folk Festival, July, 1965
*****
Interview with Time magazine, 1965
When it comes to saying a lot with a little, Chopin’s 24 Preludes for solo piano—most of which last no more than a minute or two—have few equals. This one was played at his funeral.
Frederic Chopin, Prelude No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 28
Sviatoslav Richter (1915-1997)
*****
Alfred Cortot (1877-1962)
*****
Martha Argerich (1941-)
**********
lagniappe
Today isn’t just any old day; it’s Record Store Day 2010.
Chris Brown, Bull Moose (New England record stores)
*****
reading table
an old man’s ways—
my backside warmed
by the wood fire
—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828; Trans. David G. Lanoue)
What a joy it is (and how rare) to hear someone who makes every note count.
Abdullah Ibrahim Trio, live, Germany (Leverkusen), 2007
Part 1
*****
Part 2
Earlier this week the last surviving member of the Chicago-based Gay Sisters passed away. She was a piano wizard—sometimes referred to as the “Erroll Garner of gospel piano.” A musical tribute is scheduled for Friday evening, April 16th, at the Prayer Center Church of God in Christ, which is located at 526 E. 67th St. in Chicago.
Geraldine Gay, 1931-April 6, 2010
Gay Sisters, Savoy Records, 1951
“I’m A Soldier In The Army Of The Lord”
That’s Geraldine on the right.
*****
“I’m Goin’ To Walk Out In His Name”
*****
“God Will Take Care Of You”
**********
lagniappe
‘God Will Take Care Of You’ . . . sold an easy 100,000 units (an astounding amount of records for any genre to sell at the time), which in today’s sales would be equal to the popularity of a platinum album.—Bill Carpenter, Uncloudy Days: The Gospel Music Encyclopedia (2005)
*****
Chicago is known the world over as the birthplace of gospel music. So it comes as no surprise that city officials can barely contain their excitement over the possibility of a gospel museum opening on the city’s south side. How excited are they? Well, an official with the Chicago Board of Tourism recently made this commitment: the gospel museum “is exactly the kind of thing,” she said, that they “would put up” on their Web site. Yes, you heard that right: a city official announced, publicly, that they would include it on their Web site. Take that, Nashville!
no wonder they’re called “hooks”
The moment it ends—a great pop song, that is—you want to hear it again.
Prefab Sprout
“Doo Wop In Harlem,” live (TV broadcast), c. 1990
*****
“Sweet Gospel Music”
This guy’s one of the most lyrical players and composers around.
(He also happens to have paranoid schizophrenia.)
Tom Harrell, flugelhorn/Tom Harrell Quintet
“Rhythm-A-Ning,” live, France (Paris), 2008
*****
“In the Infinite” (by TH), live, Italy (Sorrento), 2008
*****
“Dancin’ Around” (by TH), live, Brazil (Sao Paulo), 2003
**********
lagniappe
I’m posting this next piece with mixed feelings. Talking about Harrell’s psychiatric condition can distract from what’s most important—his music. On the other hand, what he’s been able to accomplish says a lot not only about him but also about the power of music.
music clip of the day 