mother & daughter
Cissy & Whitney Houston, medley (“(Sweet Sweet Baby) Since You’ve Been Gone,” “Ain’t No Way,” “You Send Me”), live (TV show), 1983
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reading table
He spreads the paper flat and pushes down its dog-eared corners. The paper was once white, and now it is yellow, he thinks. Once flat, now creased. And there is the truth about life: once this, then that.
—Samantha Harvey, The Wilderness
What better way to start the year than with the music of Sly Stone?
Steven Bernstein’s Millennial Territory Orchestra (Steven Bernstein, trumpet; John Medeski, organ, et al.), live, Paris, 2011
“Stand” (feat. Sandra St. Victor, vocals)
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“Everyday People” (feat. Eric Mingus, vocals)
*****
Still, after four decades, this album remains on my desert-island list.
Sly and the Family Stone, Fresh, 1973
1. In Time (0:00)
2. If You Want Me To Stay (5:48)
3. Let Me Have It All (8:48)
4. Frisky (11:43)
5. Thankful ‘N’ Thoughtful (14:54)
6. Skin I’m In (19:36)
7. I Don’t Know (Satisfaction) (22:29)
8. Keep On Dancin’ (26:23)
9. Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be) (28:45)
10. If It Were Left Up To Me (34:07)
11. Babies Makin’ Babies (36:07)
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random thoughts: New Year’s resolution #5
Each day: begin, again.
sounds of New Orleans
Henry Butler (piano, vocals), Steven Bernstein (trumpet), Herlin Riley (drums), et al., “Some Iko,” recording session (Viper’s Drag, 2014)
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reading table
One must always fight back, not in the hope of winning but just to delay the moment of losing.
—Samantha Harvey, The Wilderness
what’s new
D’Angelo and the Vanguard (Pino Palladino, bass; Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, drums, et al.), “Ain’t That Easy” (Black Messiah), 12/15/14
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Here’s another take.
Live, Paris, 2012
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art beat
Bruce Davidson (1933-), New York (Subway), 1980
And thankful I am for the sounds of New Orleans, a city both real and unimaginable.
James Booker (1939-1983), “Classified” (J. Booker), live
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Michael P. Smith (1937-2008), Funeral of Emile Victor Clay, New Orleans, 1996
That gospel feeling is in all of this music.
—Solomon Burke
Soul Deep: The Story of Black Popular Music, Episode 2: Sam Cooke, with Mavis Staples, Bobby Womack, Solomon Burke, Ben E. King, et al., BBC, 2005
#1
#2
#3
#4
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art beat: more from Friday at the Art Institute of Chicago
Arshile Gorky (1904-1948), The Plough and the Song, 1946
basement jukebox
Solomon Burke (1940-2010), “Stupidity” (S. Burke), 1963
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art beat
Robert Frank (1924-)
*****
the beat goes on
Eighteen hundred posts—and counting.
more sounds from Louisiana
Follow Me Down: Portraits of Louisiana Prison Musicians (trailer), 2012
*****
Music from the Big House (excerpt), 2010
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art beat
Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004), Louisiana, 1947
keep on dancing
“Since The Accident”
Obsolete Music Technology, 2012
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Specter’s Shattered Mix, 2012
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reading table
“Come this way, this way
blind man!”
little butterfly—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827; translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)
basement jukebox
The Ohio Untouchables (feat. Robert Ward, guitar), “Forgive Me Darling,” 1962
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Lonnie Mack, “Memphis,” 1963
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musical thoughts
Maybe, when this life is over, instead of listening to music, we’ll become it.
music clip of the day 