music clip of the day

jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more

Category: radio

2011

Wednesday, 4/13/11

what’s new
an occasional series

The future of hip-hop?

Odd Future (with The Roots), “Sandwitches,” live (TV broadcast), 2/16/11

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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lagniappe

reading table

The bad news is the ship hasn’t arrived;
the good news is it hasn’t left yet.

—John Ashbery, “He Who Loves And Runs Away” (excerpt; Planisphere [2009])

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radio

WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University) will be playing the music of jazz violinist Billy Bang, who died Monday night, all day.

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2011

Thursday, 4/7/11

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


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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.

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“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

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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.

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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'”

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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“San Antonio Rose”

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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“Take Me Back To Tulsa”

Vodpod videos no longer available.
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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

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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

Wednesday, 3/9/11

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.

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#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.

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2011

Sunday, 3/6/11

I wouldn’t mind dying if I knew my funeral would sound like this.

Vernard Johnson (alto saxophone), “Goin’ Up Yonder,” “Amazing Grace,” live (service for alto saxophonist Philip Slack [begins at 2:50]), 1/09 (from the forthcoming documentary Walk With Me)

Vodpod videos no longer available.

More? Here.

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lagniappe

radio

Greatest radio station on the planet? WFMU-FM, home of the wonderful Sinner’s Crossroads (“[s]cratchy vanity 45s, pilfered field recordings, muddy off-the-radio sounds, homemade congregational tapes and vintage commercial gospel throw-downs; a little preachin’, a little salvation, a little audio tomfoolery”), is a contender. They’re currently in the midst of their annual fundraiser, offering great DJ-crafted premiums. What better way to get rid of that extra dough that’s just taking up space?

*****

art beat

American Modern: Abbott, Evans, Bourke-White
Art Institute of Chicago (through 5/15/11)

Berenice Abbott, Church of God, New York (Harlem), 1936

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2011

Wednesday, 2/16/11

Comedy, like jazz, is an art of syncopation.

Lenny Bruce, 1959 (with Cannonball Adderly, saxophone; Bill Evans, piano; Teddy Kotick, bass; Philly Joe Jones, drums)

Vodpod videos no longer available.

(Yeah, I could do without all the extra blah-blah-blah, too.)

More Lenny? Here.

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lagniappe

radio

Today WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University) is remembering George Shearing, who passed away Monday at the age of 91, with a memorial broadcast that runs until 9 p.m. (EST).

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2011

Tuesday, 2/1/11

I can’t make up my mind about the Internet.

Does it make it possible, with simply a click, to travel anywhere in the world?

Or is it just a vast collection of electronic wallpaper?

Are these the right questions?

Baloji, “Tout Ceci Ne Vous Rendra Pas le Congo” (Hotel Impala), 2007

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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lagniappe

radio

Having just completed two days of trumpeter Roy Eldridge’s music, WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University) begins a 24-hour Memorial Broadcast honoring composer Milton Babbitt, who passed away Saturday at the age of 94.

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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.

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“After You’ve Gone,” 1937

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“Wabash Stomp,” 1937

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

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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lagniappe

radio Roy Eldridge

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

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