music clip of the day

jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more

Category: R&B

2011

Friday, May 20, 2011

Who else (besides, of course, Bob Dylan) has played so many different roles so brilliantly?

Miles Davis (with Robben Ford & guest Carlos Santana, guitars), “Burn”
Live, Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, New Jersey, 6/15/86

Listen to stuff long enough and it changes—or you do, anyway. Once I might have faulted this for being repetitive. But that’s a bit like faulting roast beef for being meat. Of course it’s repetitive. That’s part of what makes it soar.

More? Here.

**********

lagniappe

listening room: what’s playing

• Rashied Ali Quintet, Live In Europe (Survival Records)

• Paul Motian (with Chris Potter, Jason Moran), Lost In A Dream (ECM)

• Charlie Parker, The Complete Royal Roost Live Recordings on Savoy, Vol. 3 (Columbia Japan)

• Eric Dolphy At The Five Spot, Vol. 2 (with Booker Little, Mal Waldron, Richard Davis, Ed Blackwell; Prestige)

• Various Artists, Fire In My Bones: Raw + Rare + Other-Worldly African-American Gospel (1944-2007) (Tompkins Square)

• Reverend Charlie Jackson, God’s Got It: The Legendary Booker and Jackson Singles (CaseQuarter)

• Group Doueh, Guitar Music from the Western Sahara (Sublime Frequencies)

• Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 8 in A Minor, Helene Grimaud, Resonances (Deutsche Grammophon)

• Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 23 (“Appasionata”) and No. 29 (“Hammerklavier”), Solomon, The Master Pianist (EMI Classics)

• Anton Webern: String Quartet, Six Bagatelles for String Quartet, String Quartet Op. 28, LaSalle Quartet (Brilliant Classics)

• Arnold Schoenberg: String Quartet in D major, LaSalle Quartet (Brilliant Classics)

• Roger Sessions: String Quartet No. 2, Julliard String Quartet (Composers Recordings)

• Morton Feldman: For Bunita Marcus, John Tilbury, Morton Feldman, All Piano (London HALL)

• WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University)
—Bird Flight (Phil Schaap, jazz [Charlie Parker])
—Morning Classical (Various)
—Amazing Grace (Various)

• WFMU-FM
—Mudd Up! (DJ/Rupture, “new bass and beats”)
—Sinner’s Crossroads (Kevin Nutt, gospel)
—Give The Drummer Some (Doug Schulkind, sui generis)
—Fool’s Paradise (Rex, sui generis)
—Transpacific Sound Paradise (Rob Weisberg, “popular and unpopular music from around the world”)

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2011

Monday, 5/16/11

Weary of this “too too solid flesh”?*

Wanna liquify?

Theo Parrish (remixing Hamilton Bohannon)
Live, Denmark (Rotterdam), 1/28/11

Vodpod videos no longer available.

If you (like me) could live with this all day, hit repeat.

And if tomorrow you want more, go here.

*W. Shakespeare, Hamlet

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2011

Friday, 5/13/11

Happy Birthday, Luke!

What would it be like—I can only wonder—to be turning twenty today?

Here’s a fave from the Luke files.

***

If I didn’t have kids, would my ears be stuck, forever, on “repeat”?

Here’s something my younger son Luke, who just started college, played for me recently, after first pronouncing it, with quiet but absolute authority, the best thing this guy has done (already Luke’s learned that what’s important isn’t to be right; it’s to seem right).

Lupe Fiasco, “Hip Hop Saved My Life,” live, Los Angeles, 2008

(Originally posted 9/14/09.)

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2011

Friday, 4/1/11

I could listen to this—just the drum track, even—all day.

Booker T. Jones with The Roots, “Everything Is Everything”
Live (recording studio), The Road From Memphis (5/11 release)

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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lagniappe

reading table

spring peace—
after rain a gang war
garden sparrows

—Kobayashi Issa, 1795 (trans. David G. Lanoue)

(Want to improve your life immeasurably? For free? Without side effects? Sign up for Issa Haiku-a-Day. Your inbox never had it so good).

*****

Alcove

Is it possible that spring could be
once more approaching? We forget each time
what a mindless business it is, porous like sleep,
adrift on the horizon, refusing to take sides, “mugwump
of the final hour,” lest an agenda—horrors!—be imputed to it,
and the whole point of its being spring collapse
like a hole dug in sand. It’s breathy, though,
you have to say that for it.

And should further seasons coagulate
into years, like spilled, dried paint, why,
who’s to say we weren’t provident? We indeed
looked out for others as though they mattered, and they,
catching the spirit, came home with us, spent the night
in an alcove from which their breathing could be heard clearly.
But it’s not over yet. Terrible incidents happen
daily. That’s how we get around obstacles.

—John Ashbery (Planisphere [2009])

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2011

Thursday, 3/31/11

basement jukebox*
(an occasional series)

Fontella Bass, “Rescue Me” (1965)

Vodpod videos no longer available.

*****

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

Vodpod videos no longer available.

*****

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

Monday, 3/28/11

four takes

“Everybody Needs Love” (Eddie Hinton)

Drive-By Truckers, live, Ashland, North Carolina, 2010

Vodpod videos no longer available.

*****

Eddie Hinton, live, c. 1982

Vodpod videos no longer available.

*****

Eddie Hinton, recording, 1982

Vodpod videos no longer available.

*****

Drive-By Truckers, live (TV broadcast [Conan]), 3/8/11

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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lagniappe

overheard

Sunday morning, on a plane from Chicago to Boston, a young girl in the row in front of me:

I just don’t get how air is bumpy.

***

Do people in Boston have accents?

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2011

Saturday, 3/19/11

Sometimes, when the world just seems too noisy, too busy, what you need is something that couldn’t be simpler.

Slim Harpo, “Rainin’ In My Heart” (1961)

Vodpod videos no longer available.
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2011

Friday, 3/4/11

four takes

“Rainy Night In Georgia” (Tony Joe White, 1962)

Brook Benton, 1970 (Billboard Soul Singles #1, Hot 100 #4)

Vodpod videos no longer available.

***

Otis Rush, 1976 (rec. 1971)

Vodpod videos no longer available.

(This track’s a mixed bag: he muffs the first line [dropping “the night” after “spend”] and the low notes are a stretch [at least in this key]; but the choruses are terrific, as is the bridge.)

***

Conway Twitty with Sam Moore, 1994

Vodpod videos no longer available.

***

Tony Joe White, TV broadcast (Netherlands), 2006 (?)

Vodpod videos no longer available.
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2011

Thursday, 2/24/11

what’s new
(an occasional series)

Have you heard the Lupe & John Legend?

—my 19-year-old son Luke

Lupe Fiasco (featuring John Legend), “Never Forget You” (2010)

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Listening to music that means a lot to someone else gives you an opportunity nothing else does. You get to hear the world through their ears. This song, for instance, coming to my ears through my son Luke’s, makes me wonder: What’s it like to look back on your life, on all that’s come before, when you’re 19 years old?

More Lupe? Here. And here. And here.

More Legend? Here. And here.

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2011

Friday, 2/11/11

The other night, near the end of his big show at Madison Square Garden,
after bringing his opening act back onstage, the little guy played this.

Prince & Cee Lo (Cee-Lo?) Green, “Crazy,” New York, 2/7/11

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Like a lot of great music, this song first reached my ears (shortly after its release) through my younger son Luke, who, one day as I’m driving him across town to a friend’s house, says he has something to play me and slides this into the CD player, cranking the volume way up.

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