This would be riveting even with the sound off.
James Brown, “I Got You (I Feel Good),” live (TV broadcast), c. 1965
Vodpod videos no longer available.Like Lester Young and Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, James Brown floats over the bar lines, defying, as he dances, the gravitational pull of the downbeat.
Want more? Here.
street music
The brass band goes uptown.
Asphalt Orchestra, live, New York
#1 (2009)
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#2 (2010)
Perhaps the greatest drummer who has ever lived . . .
—Brian Eno
Tony Allen
Live, “New Morning”
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
Secret Agent, 2010
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
lagniappe
When I sit down there [at the drums], that’s what I’ve been waiting for . . .
—Tony Allen
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reading table
The time to make up your mind about people is never!
—Tracy Lord, The Philadelphia Story
***
You get to decide what to worship.
Zadie Smith, Changing My Mind (2009), epigraphs
Merry Christmas!
Bessie Smith (with Joe Smith, cornet; Charlie Green, trombone; Fletcher Henderson, piano), “At the Christmas Ball” (1925)
*****
Lowell Fulson, “Lonesome Christmas (I & II)” (1950)
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
Sonny Boy Williamson, “Sonny Boy’s Christmas Blues” (1951)
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
lagniappe
radio: all Bach, all the time
WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University) is currently in the midst of their annual Bach Festival, which runs through the end of the year.
*****
reading table
Barn’s burnt down—
now
I can see the moon.—Mitzuta Masahide (trans. Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto), 1657-1723
*****
going forward
I won’t be here every day; but I’ll be here often.
Captain Beefheart (AKA Don Van Vliet), January 5, 1941–December 17, 2010
replay: a clip too good for just one day
For some people, going their own way seems to be the only way they could possibly go.
Captain Beefheart (AKA Don Van Vliet)
The Artist Formerly Known As Captain Beefheart (BBC Documentary, 1997)
Part 1
*****
Part 2
*****
Part 3
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Part 4
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Part 5
*****
Part 6
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lagniappe
Don’t you think that somebody like Stravinsky . . . it would annoy him if somebody bent a note the wrong way?
—Captain Beefheart
*****
About the seventh or eighth time [I listened to Trout Mask Replica], I thought it was the greatest album ever made—and I still do.
—Matt Groening
*****
art beat
Paintings by Don Van Vliet
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(Originally posted 3/6/10.)
Having posted this, I’m going to return to the break I mentioned the other day—back soon.
Some music asks nothing more than to be a source of delight.
Wim Mertens Ensemble, “Maximizing the Audience,” live, Spain (Madrid), 1998
Vodpod videos no longer available.The history of jazz, I once thought (like a lot of folks), is a story of progress. The shift from swing to bebop, for example, wasn’t simply a change; it was an advance. What bunk.
Erskine Hawkins Orchestra, “Swinging in Harlem,” 1938
Here’s more from the city that does death like no other.
Funeral for Juanita Brooks, New Orleans, 2009
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
lagniappe
Here’s a taste of the Syl Johnson show I recently saw.
Syl Johnson, “Same Kind of Thing,” live, Chicago, 11/27/10
Vodpod videos no longer available.Memphis.
1953.
A little studio—Memphis Recording Service—over on Union Avenue.
Little Junior Parker, “Feel So Bad” (1953), “Sittin’ at the Bar” (1954), Sun Records, Memphis
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lagniappe
I’d like to dedicate this song to Little Junior Parker, a cousin of mine who’s gone on, but we’d like to kind of carry on in his name . . . .
Al Green, “Take Me To The River,” Hi Records, Memphis, 1974
Al wrote this, with guitarist Mabon “Teenie” Hodges, and recorded it first; Hi labelmate Syl Johnson had the hit.
music clip of the day 