From Reminders for Daily Living (3d ed. 2007):
Always keep a cape handy.
James Brown, “Please, Please, Please,” live, 1964, California (Santa Monica), The T.A.M.I. Show
More people than ever are cultural nomads. Take this guy, for instance: a Swiss-born Iranian, he moved to New York in 2008, after living in Japan. His music conjures places that can’t be found on any map—a jazz club in the desert, sand hills in Manhattan.
The Tehran-Dakar Brothers (Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi, tenor saxophone, with Ladell McLin, guitar; Al MacDowell, bass; Lukas Ligeti [son of composer Gyorgy Ligeti], drums), live, New York, 2009
“Welcome New Iran”
*****
“Desert Blues”
*****
“Khorasan”
*****
“Tavalod”
Great drummers are like great basketball players—they lift everybody’s game.
Trixie Whitley with Brian Blade (drums) and Daniel Lanois, “I’d Rather Go Blind,” recording session, 2008
*****
Herbie Hancock (piano), Wayne Shorter (saxophone), Dave Holland (bass), Brian Blade (drums); live, Germany (Salzau), 2004
Part 1
(It may simply be a coincidence [or my imagination], but a four-note pattern that Herbie keeps repeating, with variations, reminds me, particularly at around 2:27 and following, of the beginning of Alfred Schnittke’s Piano Concerto [featured on 1/14/10].)
Part 2
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lagniappe
Johnny [Vidacovich, featured on 9/30/09], man . . . what an inspiration. His playing is so liquid but at the same time just the street of it is so intoxicating. Studying with him, the drumming aspect was never about fundamental things. It was never about the drums as much as it was about the music and playing with this melodic sensibility. That sticks with me even more than the thickness or the groove, which he never spoke about, really. That was like a given. If you have it inside of you, that groove, you need to lay it down. But also need to be able to sing through the drums.—Brian Blade
Sometimes you’re not in the mood for subtlety.
Or complexity.
Or anything else that’s got more than one syllable.
You want sweat.
Funk.
That clenched scream: “Uhowwwww!”
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Wilson Pickett, live, Germany, 1968
“Everybody Needs Someone To Love”
*****
“I’m In Love”
*****
“Ninety-Nine And A Half (Won’t Do)”
*****
“Mustang Sally”
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lagniappe
“We didn’t make enough money to press our suits,” Pickett reminisced when asked about the Violinaires, the gospel group he formed shortly after moving to Detroit from his native Alabama. “We would sing three programs a Sunday at different churches. We’d sing our hearts out, and so we done sweated up that suit three times — from the socks all the way up.
“The sisters would get up and they’d put a penny or a dime on the table and say ‘Ya’ll boys sho’ can sing.’ And we’d come in the back, and they got all the chicken baskets and pies and stuff to eat, and even occasionally one of the sisters would take you home.”
The young Pickett soon caught the eye not only of a sister or two, but also of the Falcons, a local R&B group with whom he later wrote and sang his first hit song, “I Found a Love,” in 1962.
“I was scared because these people says that if you leave God and go to the devil, you’re going to go to hell. You see, I wanted to sing gospel, but I wanted to make some money, too. So I said, ‘No I’ll never leave, I’ll never leave God.’ Until that evening that one of the Falcons came by and I was sitting on the back porch and I went down and tried it out. And from then on I told God, I looked up and I said, ‘I’m on my way this way — would You care to go with me? I’d really appreciate Your being with me. It’d make me feel better.’—Ken Emerson, “Wilson Pickett: Soul Man On Ice”
The term “sideman” can be misleading. It suggests a leader/soloist who reigns supreme while the other musicians serve merely as accompanists. But the strongest jazz performances, especially live ones, rarely work that way—they’re all about interplay. Here, on piano, bass, and drums, are three of the finest jazz musicians in recent memory. Each contributes mightily to the quality of this performance. All, alas, are now gone.
David Murray, tenor saxophone, with John Hicks, piano; Fred Hopkins, bass; Ed Blackwell, drums; “Morning Song,” live, New York (Village Vanguard), 1986
Part 1
Here are just a few of the things I love about what these guys do:
:14-16, :45-48, 1:17-20: Hopkins can be both fat and precise, funky and elegant. What other bassist pops so impeccably?
4:04-4:22: This is pure Blackwell: a delicate counterpoint dance that lifts everything without ever calling attention to itself.
5:25-42, 6:00-05: Some musicians play “inside” the chord changes and structure, some play “outside”; only a few, like Hicks, are able to do both at once, delineating the changes and structure while at the same time subverting them.
*****
Part 2
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lagniappe
Great! [T. L. Barrett]
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I love your music clips . . . . Listening to Gil Scott-Heron right now, in fact.
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love this . . . thank you for including me! [Jimmie Dale Gilmore]
In a recent NIH-funded study, conducted over a period of six months, individuals suffering from clinical depression who listened to this man’s music for ten minutes a day fared significantly better, as measured by the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS), than those who did not.
Fats Waller
“Honeysuckle Rose” (1941)
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“Your Feet’s Too Big” (1940s)
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“Ain’t Misbehavin'” (1941)
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“The Joint Is Jumpin'” (1940s)
You can pay 600 bucks to fly to Berlin—or you can play this clip.
Arto Lindsay, The Penny Parade, live, Berlin, 2009
Want more? Here.
William Zinsser, author of On Writing Well:
Short words are better than long words.
Little Richard:
I’m gonna rip it up . . .
Little Richard, “Rip It Up,” live (TV broadcast), c. 1956
This guy—one of my all-time musical heroes (someone I’ve been listening to for over 30 years)—makes you move. He makes you feel. He makes you think. What more could you ask for?
Henry Threadgill, alto saxophone
With His Very Very Circus, live, New York, 1995
*****
With his Society Situation Dance Band (featuring Craig Harris, trombone), live, Germany (Hamburg), 1988
Like a lot of live performances (especially ones where the musicians haven’t had many chances to play together [as no doubt was the case here]), this gets better as it goes along. At first, things are a bit tentative and raggedy. Then, at around 1:50, trombonist Craig Harris starts to find his way. By around 2:15, the horns and strings begin to sound more cohesive. By around 3:30, the drummers, having gotten more comfortable with the tempo and structure, start to push the groove harder. At around 8:00, with everything going full steam, Threadgill, feeling Harris feeling it, suddenly breaks things down, leaving just the ’bone and the electric guitar. And with that, the performance jumps out of its skin.
*****
With Judith Sanchez Ruiz (dancer), live, New York, 2008
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lagniappe
Music should go right through you, leave some of itself inside you, and take some of you with it when it leaves.—Henry Threadgill
Sax player in a ska band—easiest job in music?
The Blues Busters, “I Don’t Know,” live, Jamaica (Kingston [Sombrero Club]), 1962
music clip of the day 