old school
Lee Fields & The Expressions, “Faithful Man,” 2012
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reading table
[W]e live in a place/That is not our own and, much more, not ourselves.
—Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction”
You can only hear with the ears you’ve got. And the ones I’ve got came of age in another era. But is it merely reflexive nostalgia to ask: Is there anything today—anything at all—that can compare with this?
Otis Redding (1941-1967), with Booker T. & the M.G.’s* and The Mar-Keys,** “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” (O. Redding & J. Butler), live, Monterey Pop Festival, 1967
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reading table
What advice would you give to people who are looking to be happy?
For starters, learn how to cook.
—“Questions for Charles Simic: In-Verse Thinking,” interview by Deborah Solomon, New York Times, 2/3/08
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*Booker T. Jones, organ; Steve Cropper, guitar; Donald “Duck” Dunn, bass; Al Jackson, Jr., drums.
**Wayne Jackson, trumpet; Joe Arnold, alto saxophone; Andrew Love, tenor saxophone.
soundtrack of a marriage
On my first date with Suzanne, in 1974, we went to Chicago’s Jazz Showcase (then upstairs on Lincoln, just south of Fullerton), where we saw Sun Ra & His Arkestra. With a start like that, how could one ever go wrong? When we got married, on this date in 1977, Von Freeman played at the wedding, with pianist John Young. Years later John told me: “When I marry ’em, they stay married.”
Sun Ra & His Arkestra, live, Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival, 1974
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Von Freeman, live (with John Young, piano), “Remember,” Chicago (Jazz Showcase), New Year’s Eve 1983 (according to the clip) or 1979 (according to NPR)
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Want to hear what Von and John sounded like on that cold, snowy night thirty-six years ago, at a church north of Chicago? Here (give it a few seconds). As you’ll hear, they played before, during (the processional was Ellington’s “In A Sentimental Mood”), and after the ceremony.
This I could listen to all day.
Neneh Cherry & The Thing (Mats Gustafsson, baritone saxophone; Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, bass; Paal Nilssen-Love, drums), “Dream Baby Dream,” live, Spain (San Sebastian), 2012
With just one horn, there’s a lot of space for the other players—the so-called “rhythm section”—to fill, which these guys do as well as anyone I’ve heard in a long time.
David Murray’s Black Saint Quartet (DM, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet; Lafayette Gilchrist, piano; Jaribu Shahid, bass; Hamid Drake, drums), live, Berlin, 2007
Ernest Dawkins’ New Horizons Ensemble (ED, alto saxophone; Steve Berry, trombone; Darius Savage, bass; Isaiah Spencer, drums), live, Chicago, 2005
tonight
These guys will be playing at the Hideout, a small club on Chicago’s near northwest side, which is where I’ll be too.
DKV Trio (Hamid Drake, drums; Kent Kessler, bass; Ken Vandermark, reeds), live, Italy (Sant’Anna Arresi Jazz Festival), 2008
passings
Dave Brubeck, pianist, composer, bandleader
December 6, 1920-December 5, 2012
Dave Brubeck Quartet (DB, piano; Paul Desmond, alto saxophone; Gene Wright, bass; Joe Morello, drums), TV show (Jazz Casual with Ralph J. Gleason*), 1961 (followed by other clips)
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found words
japanese punk band with sousaphone
—Web search that brought someone here
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*Gleason, who died in 1975, had a hand in a lot of different things, including the Monterey Jazz Festival (cofounder, 1958) and Rolling Stone (cofounder, 1967).
We ain’t never goin’ home . . .
—Neneh Cherry (59:55)*
Neneh Cherry & The Thing (Mats Gustafsson, baritone saxophone, electronics; Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, bass; Paal Nilssen-Love, drums), live, Austria (Konfrontationen 2012, Nickelsdorf), 7/21/12
*“Call the Police” (S. McDee).
My favorite drummer?
There are days I’d say this is the guy.
Among the many things I love about his playing, which dances, always, is the balance of simplicity and complexity—it’s never more complex than it is simple, never simpler than it is complex.
Old and New Dreams (Don Cherry [1936-1995], pocket trumpet; Dewey Redman [1931-2006], tenor saxophone; Charlie Haden [1937-], bass; Ed Blackwell [1929-1992], drums), live
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reading table
Art is not in some far-off place.
—Lydia Davis, “Extracts from a Life” (The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, 2009)
music clip of the day 