music clip of the day

jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more

Category: piano

2011

Thursday, 3/31/11

basement jukebox*
(an occasional series)

Fontella Bass, “Rescue Me” (1965)

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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Tyrone Davis, “Can I Change My Mind” (1969)

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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Otis Clay, “The Only Way Is Up” (1980)

Vodpod videos no longer available.

*When I was a little boy, a big bright shiny jukebox lit up our basement. Daily it granted our wishes, communicated with just the touch of a finger, for “Wake Up, Little Susie” (Everly Brothers) and “The Battle of New Orleans” (Johnny Horton) and “(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance” (Gene Pitney). It taught me something I’ve never forgotten—music is magic.

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2011

Saturday, 3/26/11

The notes are easy enough to replicate—the touch impossible.

Pinetop Perkins (piano, vocals), July 7, 1913-March 21, 2011

“Grindin’ Man” (with Willie “Big Eyes” Smith, harmonica), live, New Jersey (New Brunswick), 2008

Vodpod videos no longer available.

*****

“How Long Blues,” live

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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lagniappe

He was one of the last great Mississippi Bluesmen. He had such a distinctive voice, and he sure could play the piano. He will be missed not only by me, but by lovers of music all over the world.

—B.B. King

*****

If you don’t want to die, don’t be born.

—Red Paden, owner of Red’s Blues Club, Clarksdale, Mississippi

*****

my back pages

Many years ago I had the pleasure of working with him, co-producing his tracks on Living Chicago Blues, Vol. 2 (Alligator 1978). Warm, amiable, unassuming—he was easy to like.

*****

listening room: what’s playing

• Ornette Coleman, Town Hall 1962

• Mos Def, The Ecstatic

• Lupe Fiasco, Lasers

• Steve Reich, Double Sextet, 2×5

• Rudresh Mahanthappa & Bunky Green, Apex

• Nneka, Concrete Jungle

• Theo Parrish, Sound Sculptures, Vol. 1

• Powerhouse Gospel On Independent Labels, 1946-1959

• WFMU-FM: Sinner’s Crossroads (Kevin Nutt), Mudd Up! (DJ/rupture)

• WKCR-FM: Bird Flight (Phil Schapp), Jazz Alternatives (various), Out To Lunch (various), Western Swing Festival (various)

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2011

Friday, 3/25/11

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'”

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“San Antonio Rose”

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“Take Me Back To Tulsa”

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2011

Wednesday, 3/23/11

More Lester

The world became a less interesting place the day Lester Bowie died.

Digable Planets with Lester Bowie (trumpet), Joe Sample (keyboard), Melvin “Wah-Wah Watson” Ragin (guitar), “Flying High in the Brooklyn Sky,” live

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lagniappe

Part of the job of a musician is that of a messenger. If you ain’t ready to be a messenger, forget it. You need to get a job in the post office or somewhere. If you ain’t ready to travel, pack up your family, or pack up yourself and hit the road, you’re in the wrong business. Because that’s what music is about. It’s about spreading knowledge and education, and re-education. It’s about spreading. You have got to travel with it to spread the word. Like all the people in the past that have had to travel to spread the music.

*****

It’s life itself that this [music] is about.

—Lester Bowie (in George E. Lewis, A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music [2008])

(Previously posted 10/28/09.)

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2011

Wednesday, 3/16/11

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.

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2011

Sunday, 3/13/11

This afternoon, at 3 p.m., hundreds of gospel fans—from all over—will gather, once again, at a church on Chicago’s south side (First Church of Deliverance, 4315 S. Wabash) to celebrate her (85th!) birthday.

DeLois Barrett Campbell & the Barrett Sisters, “Precious Lord, Take My Hand,” live, 1983

Vodpod videos no longer available.

More? Here. And here. And here.

More “Precious Lord”? Here (Aretha Franklin at 14). And here (composer Thomas A. Dorsey).

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2011

Friday, 3/11/11

Don’t try to tell me there’s anything incongruous—anything at all—in loving Beethoven and loving Chopin and loving Del Shannon.

Del Shannon, December 30, 1934-February 8, 1990

“Runaway” (with Burton Cummings [Guess Who], piano), 1982

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“I Go To Pieces,” 1988 (?)

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“Sea of Love,” 1982

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lagniappe

mail

One of the best ever [Ornette Coleman, 3/9/11].

I am so glad I am on this list!!

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2011

Thursday, 3/10/11

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

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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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.)

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2011

Monday, 3/7/11

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.

More Sun Ra? Here. And here.

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lagniappe

reading table

The world is half magic

—George Oppen (from “Twenty-Six Fragments”)

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2011

Saturday, 3/5/11

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

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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.)


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