music clip of the day

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Category: saxophone

2013

Thursday, May 16th

keep on dancing

Charlie Parker (alto saxophone) with Ray Malone (tap dance), “Donna Lee,” TV show (Broadway Open House*), 1950

*Broadway Open House is network television’s first late-night comedy-variety series. It was telecast live on NBC from May 29, 1950 to August 24, 1951, airing weeknights from 11pm to midnight. One of the pioneering TV creations of NBC president Pat Weaver, it demonstrated the potential for late-night programming and led to the later development of The Tonight Show.

—Wikipedia

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2013

Wednesday, May 15th

tonight

I’m going, with my son Alex, to hear a quartet led by this Chicago-based saxophonist at the Hideout, a small club on the city’s northwest side.

Nick Mazzarella Trio (NM, alto saxophone; Anton Hatwich, bass; Frank Rosaly, drums), live, “Do Not Disturb,” live, Asheville, N.C., 2011

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

Make the drummer sound good.

—Thelonious Monk

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2013

Tuesday, May 7th

Only a world this noisy could produce music this quiet.

Evan Parker (soprano saxophone), et al.,* live, London (Freedom of the City festival), 2011


*Heledd Francis Wright (flute), John Russell (guitar), Augusti Fernandez (piano), Adam Linson (bass), Toma Gouband (percussion), Lawrence Casserley (electronics), Matt Wright (electronics).

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2013

Wednesday, May 1st


Yeah, I love Mozart and Chopin, but I don’t want to listen to them every day. I don’t want to listen to anything every day. This stuff, to these ears, is utterly exhilarating.

Nels Cline (guitar), Dave Rempis (saxophones), Devin Hoff (bass), Frank Rosaly (drums), live, Chicago (Hideout), 2011

#1

#2

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

I discovered that there’s a kind of a hidden connection between R&B and free jazz: the need for that kind of visceral connection with the audience and for something to happen that moves people. I think that beyond R&B, it’s a feature of black music — the moment the solo builds and builds and at a certain point, it hits that cry. Knowing when that needs to happen is something that players from that tradition seem to have.

—guitarist Marc Ribot

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2013

Friday, April 26th

what’s new

Colin Stetson (saxophone), “In Mirrors,” “And In Truth” (feat. Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon), 4/13

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2013

Tuesday, April 23rd

There seem to be two possibilities here. One is that you’ll find this mesmerizing, as I do. The other is that it’ll drive you bonkers.

Roscoe Mitchell, alto saxophone, live, Italy (Bologna, Angelica Festival), 2011

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lagniappe

reading table

Wang Wei (699-759), “Deer Park”
(translated from Chinese by Gary Snyder)

Empty mountains:
            no one to be seen.
Yet—hear—
            human sounds and echoes.
Returning sunlight
            enters the dark woods;
Again shining
            on the green moss, above.
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2013

Monday, April 8th

never enough

Von Freeman, tenor saxophone (1923-2012, MCOTD Hall of Famer); Jodie Christian (1932-2012), piano; Rufus Reid (1944-), bass; Jack DeJohnette (1942-), drums; “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” (E. Maschwitz & M. Sherwin), live, Harrisburg, Penn., 1994


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lagniappe

musical thoughts

Your sound is who you are; it is what makes you different from me and any other saxophonist. We all have the same 12 notes. The only thing that differentiates us, one from the other, is our tone. If you don’t have a sound you can play a thousand notes and no one will hear you, but if you have a sound you can play only one note and everyone will hear you.

—Von Freeman

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2013

Wednesday, April 3rd

Rock drummers trying to play jazz usually sound like, well, rock drummers trying to play jazz. Jazz drummers trying to play rock are no different; they typically sound like tourists pretending to be natives. This guy, no matter the idiom (rock, jazz, gospel, whatever), sounds right at home.

Brian Blade and The Fellowship Band, live, Chicago, 3/14/13

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lagniappe

reading table

Maybe we think that nirvana is a place where there are no problems, no more delusions. Maybe we think nirvana is something very beautiful, something unattainable. We always think nirvana is something very different from our own life. But we must really understand that it is right here, right now.

—Taizan Maezumi, Appreciate Your Life (2001)

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2013

Tuesday, April 2nd

two takes

Alton Ellis (1938-2008), “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do”

Live


Recording


*****

lagniappe

reading table

First day of spring—
I keep thinking about
the end of autumn.

—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694, translated from Japanese by Robert Hass)

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2013

Monday, April 1st

Monk

Thelonious Monk Quartet (TM [1917-1982], piano; Charlie Rouse, tenor saxophone; Larry Gales, bass; Ben Riley, drums), 1968


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lagniappe

reading table

opening day . . .
green of the field
through the ticket gates

—Randy Brooks (Baseball Haiku, Cor van den Heuvel & Nanae Tamura, eds.)

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