basement jukebox*
Lee Moses, singer & guitarist, 1941-1997
“Bad Girl” (1967)
Part 1
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Part 2
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“Diana (From N.Y.C.)” (1971)
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*When I was little, a big bright jukebox lit up our basement. Daily it granted our every wish, communicated with just the touch of a finger. “Wake Up Little Susie” (Everly Brothers). “The Battle of New Orleans” (Johnny Horton). “(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance” (Gene Pitney). It taught me something I never forgot—music is magic.
the first voice Whitney heard
Emily “Cissy” Houston (born Emily Drinkard), singer, 1933-
The Drinkard Singers (Cissy Houston, lead vocals), “Lift Him Up,” live (TV broadcast), c. early 1960s
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lagniappe
Live (TV broadcast), 1970
“Be My Baby” (P. Spector, J. Barry & E. Greenwich)
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“I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself” (B. Bacharach & H. David)
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listening room: (some of) what’s playing
• Ambrose Akinmusire, When the Heart Emerges Glistening (Blue Note)
• Johann Sebastian Bach, Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, Pierre Fournier, cello (Archiv Production)
• Johann Sebastian Bach, Well-Tempered Clavier, Glenn Gould, piano (Sony)
• Johann Sebastian Bach, Partitas Nos. 3, 4, 6, Jeremy Denk, piano (Azica)
• Ludwig van Beethoven, Piano Sonatas Nos. 14 (“Moonlight”), 8 (“Pathetique”), 23 (“Appassionata”), Rudolf Serkin, piano (CBS)
• Alfred Cortot, The Master Pianist (EMI)
• Claude Debussy, Pour Le Piano, Etudes Books 1 & 2, Gordon Fergus-Thompson, piano (Musical Heritage Society)
• The Dirtbombs, Ultraglide In Black (In the Red Records)
• Morton Feldman, For Bunita Marcus, John Tilbury, piano (London Hall)
• Morton Feldman, Piano and String Quartet, Aki Takahashi (piano), Kronos Quartet (Nonesuch)
• Mary Halvorson Quintet, Saturn Sings (Firehouse)
• Slim Harpo, The Best of Slim Harpo (Hip-O)
• Paul Hindemith, Benjamin Britten, Krzysztof Penderecki; Kim Kashkashian (viola), Stuttgarter Kammerorchester (Dennis Russell Davies, cond.), Lachrymae (ECM)
• Steve Lehman Octet, Travail, Transformation, and Flow (Pi Recordings)
• Jimmie Lunceford, The Complete Jimmie Lunceford Decca Sessions (Mosaic)
• Guilliaume de Michaut, Motets, The Hilliard Ensemble (ECM)
• Paul Motian Trio (with Joe Lovano, Bill Frisell), Sound of Love (Winter & Winter)
• Mudd Up!, WFMU-FM (DJ/Rupture, “new bass and beats”)
• Pee Wee Russell, Swingin’ with Pee Wee (Prestige)
• Pharoah Sanders, Karma (GRP)
• Pharoah Sanders, Live (Evidence)
• Giacinto Scelsi, Natura Renovatur (ECM)
• Arnold Schoenberg, Piano Works, Peter Serkin, piano (Arcana)
• Sinner’s Crossroads, WFMU-FM (Kevin Nutt, gospel)
• Craig Taborn, Avenging Angel (ECM)
• Toru Takemitsu, Peter Serkin Plays the Music of Toru Takemitsu, Peter Serkin, piano (RCA/BMG)
• Anton Webern, Complete Music for String Quartet, Quartetto Italiano (Philips)
• Anton Webern, Works for String Quartet, Emerson Quartet (Deutsche Grammaphon)
• Wild Flag, Wild Flag (Merge)
the ecstatic impulse
Pharoah Sanders, tenor saxophonist, composer, bandleader, 1940-
“You’ve Got To Have Freedom” (P. Sanders)
Take 1: Live (with William Henderson, piano; James Leary, bass; Kharon Harrison, drums), Los Angeles, 2011
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Take 2: Live (with John Hicks, piano; Walter Booker, bass; Idris Muhammad, drums), Los Angeles, 1981 (Live [Evidence])
More? Here.
Jazz, R&B, gospel—listening to him you’re reminded, again, that they all come from the same place.
two takes
“La-La (Means I Love You)” (T. Bell & W. Hart)
Bill Frisell (guitar) with Tony Scherr (bass) & Kenny Wollesen (drums)
Live, Rochester (NY), 2007
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The Delfonics, 1968
(First clip originally posted 5/28/10.)
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lagniappe
reading table
And this disease which was Swann’s love had so proliferated, was so closely entangled with all his habits, with all his actions, with his thoughts, his health, his sleep, his life, even with what he wanted after his death, it was now so much a part of him, that it could not have been torn from him without destroying him almost entirely: as they say in surgery, his love was no longer operable.
—Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way (translated from French by Lydia Davis)
two takes
“I’m Your Puppet” (D. Penn & S. Oldham)
James & Bobby Purify, TV show, 1966
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Dan Penn (guitar, vocals) & Spooner Oldham (keyboards), TV show, 1999
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This is one of the sadder, and stranger, love songs I know. “I’ll do funny things if you want me to”: someone who’ll “do funny things” on command but isn’t, as far as we can tell, otherwise funny is someone who’s desperate to please. And that, to me, is what this song’s about more than anything else—desperation. This is a guy who’ll “do anything.” He’s “hanging on a string.”
Some tracks, the first time you hear them (as I did this a couple weeks ago), you wonder how you ever got along without them.
Joe McPhee (tenor saxophone) with Otis Greene (alto saxophone), Mike Kull (electric piano), Herbie Lehman (organ), Dave Jones (guitar), Tyrone Crabb (bass), Bruce Thompson & Ernest Bostic (percussion), “Shakey Jake” (Nation Time, 1970; reissued 2009)
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lagniappe
random thoughts
Remember when there was a whole season—not just a storm or two—called “winter”?
passings
Etta James, singer, January 25, 1938-January 20, 2012
“I’d Rather Go Blind”
Live, Austin, Tx. (Austin City Limits), 2005
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Recording (1967)
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lagniappe
She was discovered, as a teenager, by yesterday’s featured artist; he produced her first record, which was a hit.
Etta James, “Roll With Me Henry” (AKA “The Wallflower”)
Produced by Johnny Otis, 1954
passings
Johnny Otis, December 28, 1921-January 17, 2012, singer, songwriter, piano player, bandleader, disc jockey, TV host, etc.
“Willie and the Hand Jive” (The Johnny Otis Show), c. late 1950s
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lagniappe
Genetically, I’m pure Greek. Psychologically, environmentally, culturally, by choice, I’m a member of the black community.
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Society wants to categorize everything, but to me it’s all African-American music. The music isn’t just the notes, it’s the culture—the way Grandma cooked, the way Grandpa told stories, the way the kids walked and talked.
keep on dancing
Theo Parrish (Detroit-based DJ/producer), live, Spain (Madrid), 2010
#1
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#2
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#3
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#4
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
[I]f you think about it, sound behaves a lot like sculpture except there’s a time limit. Look at that sculpture right there behind you. You look at it and there’s a front, a back, an up, a down, around and through. So you’re talking about volume. You’re talking about spatial relationships.
The thing about sound is that there is a beginning and there is usually an end, there’s a certain amount of space that it takes up, but the big difference is that all of that is merely alluded to. It’s not something that’s concretely in front of you. It’s fluid. You may hear a snare, but the way that it’s presented and the textures that it has, you can bring certain mental images to it. If you’re listening. If you’re listening.
A lot of times you’ll put something on and it’s just another track, but if you’re listening to it you can hear a lot of the nuances that are in there and really start to understand . . . start to really get your head around it . . .
Repetition kind of sets a certain mass in a song. That’s a constant, that’s something you can ‘see’ all the time. Then there’s little bits that come in and out and these changes that kinda shift on that pivot. If you think of it visually, sometimes you’re dealing with almost a mobile-like thing. This is where I go in my head sometimes. Mobile means shifting, spinning, all kinds of stuff.
If you look at it, it could almost be like sculpting air. It’s like you have all of these shapes . . . but you have to rely on a structure, but then again you really don’t have to. So your structure tends to be your time limit—how long your recording is from beginning to end. Anything that happens in that amount of time is on you. Totally up to your creativity.
music clip of the day 