passings
Bob Abrahamian, soul music DJ (WHPK, Sitting in the Park), historian, archivist, September 25, 1978-June 5, 2014
Dolores Gibson, “I Got A Feeling,” 1960
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Byrdie Green, “Tremblin’,” 1962
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Deanie Parker, “Each Step I Take,” 1964
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These tracks opened his last radio show (5/4/14).
Happy (100th) Birthday, Sonny!
Sun Ra (AKA Herman “Sonny” Blount), May 22, 1914-May 30, 1993, keyboard player, composer, bandleader, singular spirit
Today, celebrating his centennial, we revisit a few favorites.
Sun Ra All Stars (SR, keyboards; Don Cherry, pocket trumpet, vocals; Lester Bowie, trumpet; Archie Shepp, tenor saxophone, vocals; John Gilmore, tenor saxophone; Marshall Allen, alto saxophone, percussion; Philly Joe Jones, drums; Clifford Jarvis, drums; Famadou Don Moye, drums, percussion), live, Germany (Berlin), 1983
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Sun Ra & His Arkestra, live, Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival, 1974
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Sun Ra Arkestra (SR, piano; June Tyson, vocals; John Gilmore, tenor saxophone, et al.), “Springtime Again,” live, Rome, 1980
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Sun Ra (piano) & Walt Dickerson (vibraphone), “Astro” (Visions, 1978)
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lagniappe
radio
WKCR (Columbia University): Sun Ra all day—tomorrow, too.
Happy (115th) Birthday, Duke!
Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, April 29, 1899-May 24, 1974
pianist, composer, bandleader
“Black Beauty,” 1928
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“C Jam Blues,” 1942
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“Mood Indigo,” “Sophisticated Lady,” “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing),” “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” 1943
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lagniappe
radio
WKCR (Columbia University): all Duke, all day.
Happy (92nd) Birthday, Mingus!
Charles Mingus, bassist, composer, bandleader
April 22, 1922-January 5, 1979
Charles Mingus Quintet (CM, bass; Eric Dolphy, alto saxophone; Booker Ervin, tenor saxophone; Ted Curson, trumpet; Dannie Richmond, drums) with guest Bud Powell (piano), “I’ll Remember April” (G. de Paul, P. Johnston, D. Raye), live, France (Antibes Jazz Festival), 1960
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lagniappe
radio
WKCR (Columbia University): all Mingus, all day.
Happy (99th) Birthday, Billie!
Billie Holiday, singer, April 7, 1915-July 17, 1959
“All of Me” (G. Marks, S. Simons),* New York, March 21, 1941
Yesterday, I listened to this. Then I listened again. And again.
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lagniappe
radio
WKCR-FM (Columbia University): all Billie, all day.
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reading table
The Day Lady Died
By Frank O’Hara (1926-1966)It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don’t know the people who will feed meI walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days
I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn’t even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan’s new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres
of Genet, but I don’t, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandarinessand for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on itand I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing
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*With Lester Young (tenor saxophone), Kenny Clarke (drums), et al.
serendipity*
Christopher DeLaurenti (sampling Marvin Gaye, “What’s Going On” [1971]), live, Seattle, 2009
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lagniappe
reading table: passings
Bill Knott, February 17, 1940-March 12, 2014
Night Thought
Compared to one’s normal clothes, pajamas
are just as caricature as the dreams
they bare: farce-skins, facades, unserious
soft versions of the mode diem, they seem
to have come from a posthumousness;
floppy statues of ourselves, slack seams
of death. Their form mimics the decay
that will fit us so comfortably someday.
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*This I bumped into yesterday, listening to the radio (WFMU: Miniature Minotaurs [Kurt Gottschalk]).
serendipity
This I bumped into yesterday, while taking a break from work (murder case, tax stuff, etc.). I found it enthralling—maybe you will too.
Okkyung Lee (cello), live, Ireland (Cork), 2012
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lagniappe
radio
Today, on the heels of yesterday’s celebration of Ornette Coleman, WKCR (Columbia University) is hosting yet another birthday marathon—this one for jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, born on this date in 1903.
Frankie Trumbauer and His Orchestra (with Bix Beiderbecke [1903-1931], cornet), “I’m Coming Virginia” (1927)
Al testifies
Al Green, “Jesus Is Waiting,” live (TV show), 1974
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lagniappe
radio
Today, in celebration of his 84th birthday, it’s all Ornette all day on WKCR (Columbia University).
Ornette Coleman Quartet (OC, alto saxophone; Don Cherry, trumpet; Charlie Haden, bass; Ed Blackwell, drums), “Blues Connotation” (1961)
serendipity*
Never underestimate the power of unadulterated silliness.
BOB, “Thomas Edison” (1980)
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lagniappe
random thoughts
Life story: young once; then a long middle period; now old.
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*This I bumped into yesterday, listening to the radio—Liz Berg’s show on WFMU—while working on a murder case.
Silver Quintette, “Sinner’s Crossroads” (1956)
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Bessemer Sunset Four, “I Feel Like My Time Ain’t Long” (1930)
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Dixie Hummingbirds, “Every Knee Surely Must Bow” (1946)
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Famous Davis Sisters, “I Want To Be More Like Jesus” (1957)
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What do these tracks have in common? All were featured the other night on Sinner’s Crossroads, arguably (to these ears, anyway) the best show on radio. It airs Thursday night, from 8 to 9 p.m. (EST), on mighty WFMU-FM. Not only can you hear it live; every show is archived and remains available on-line. To my mind there’s no better gateway to gospel music.
music clip of the day 