music clip of the day

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Category: trombone

Friday, 9/16/11

Never heard of this guy?

You’re not alone.

But for serious mental illness, he would have been a big star.

 James Carr, singer, June 13, 1942-January 7, 2001

Live, “You Got My Mind Messed Up”

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Live, “Pouring Water on a Drowning Man”

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“The Dark End of the Street” (D. Penn & C. Moman), Goldwax, 1967

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What may be my favorite moment in this track is one that’s easy to miss; a throwaway, it comes at 1:37—the muted, fleeting “huhh.” The whole welter of emotions Carr brings to this performance—anxious, defiant, rueful, resigned—can be heard in this single syllable.

Monday, 8/22/11

Need to chase away those Monday morning blues?

You’ve come to the right place.

TBC (To Be Continued) Brass Band
Live, Satchmo Second Line Parade, New Orleans, 8/7/11

With Sidewalk Steppers

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With Undefeated Divas, Sudan Social Aid and Pleasure Club

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More? Here.


Thursday, August 4, 2011

Happy Birthday (Again), Pops!

During his life, Louis Armstrong’s birthday was believed to be July 4, 1900, but, as it turned out, that was a year and a month off—the actual date was August 4, 1901. Given the circumstances, WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University) does the only sensible thing: they celebrate both days, playing nothing but Pops 24 hours straight.

 favorites
(an occasional series)

According to Miles Davis, the history of jazz can be told in four words:
here are the first two.

Louis Armstrong, “Dinah,” live, Copenhagen, 1933

(Originally posted January 15, 2010.)

Monday, 7/25/11

What better way to start the workweek?

 Joe Lee Wilson, singer, December 22, 1935-July 17, 2011

Archie Shepp, “Money Blues” (featuring Joe Lee Wilson, lead vocals)
Things Have Got To Change (Impulse!), 1971

Part #1

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Part #2

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lagniappe

Around Joe Lee (excerpt)

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Saturday, 7/9/11

Rebirth Brass Band

Dave Douglas & Brass Ecstasy

Free Spirit Brass Band

Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy

Asphalt Orchestra

Pinettes Brass Band

Here’s another take on the brass band.

Ray Anderson’s Pocket Brass Band (RA, trombone; Lew Soloff, trumpet;
Matt Perrine, sousaphone; Bobby Previte, drums)

Live, Powerplay Studio, Switzerland (Maur), 5/27/10

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Live, Trondheim Jazz Festival (Norway), 5/14/10

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lagniappe

art beat

Cy Twombly, April 25, 1928-July 5, 2011

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The death of Cy Twombly has an oddly catastrophic feel—oddly because he was eighty-three and a canonical master, but catastrophic because he takes with him a certain epochal, now thoroughly historical, sense of wide-open liberty in very high culture. Such was the cynosure of new art in New York sixty years ago, when Twombly had his first show of startlingly scrawly, somehow furiously languid paintings and drawings. Unlike the heroes of Abstract Expressionism and his comrades Rauschenberg and Johns, he never drove that afflatus. Rather, he took it as a routine state of mind and soul. This could seem dandyishly insolent of him: shrugging off the requirement for logical necessity in big-time avant-garde art. He made clear that he did what he felt like doing. His feeling-like-doing-it was the point, ever just a dramatic whisker short of pointlessness. Who did he think he was?

—Peter Schjeldahl, New Yorker (blog), 7/6/11

Monday, July 4, 2011

Happy Birthday, Pops!*

Louis Armstrong, “Basin Street Blues” (three takes)

#1 (live, 1959, Germany [Stuttgart])

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#2 (live, 1953, New Orleans)

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#3 (recording, 1928, Chicago)

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lagniappe

more

Louis Armstrong & His Hot Five, “West End Blues,” 1928, Chicago

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radio

The federal government, in its wisdom, gives you the day off so you can listen to Louis Armstrong.

—Phil Schaap, 7/2/11, Traditions in Swing, WKCR-FM
(broadcasting from Columbia University), which today is all Pops, all day 

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reading table

Summer afternoon — summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.

—Henry James

*Louis Armstrong gave July 4th as his birthday, something that was determined, after his death, not to be true—at least not literally.

Saturday, 7/2/11

Here’s a different take—one deeply indebted to Lester Bowie—on the
brass band.

Dave Douglas & Brass Ecstasy
DD, trumpet; Louis Bonilla, trombone; Vincent Chancey, horn (AKA French horn); Marcus Rojas, tuba; Nasheet Waits, drums

“Bowie,” recording session (Spirit Moves, 2009)

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“Spirit Moves,” “This Love Affair,” “Twilight of the Dogs”
Live, Washington, D.C., 2009

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lagniappe

reading table

How can I possibly sleep
This moonlit evening?
Come, my friends,
Let’s sing and dance
All night long.

—Ryokan (1758-1831), trans. John Stevens

Friday, 7/1/11

scenes from New Orleans
(an occasional series)

Rebirth Brass Band, live, Maple Leaf Bar (where RBB plays Tuesday nights), New Orleans, 2011

“Big Chief”

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“I Like It Like That”

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More? Here. And here. And here. And here.

Wednesday, 6/29/11

Certain musicians never let me down. They always lift my spirits.
This guy’s one.

Hamid Drake (drums) & Bindu, live, Finland (Tampere), 2010

Vodpod videos no longer available.

More? Here. And here.

Monday, 6/6/11

sui generis, adj. A person or thing that is unique, in a class by itself. E.g., Anthony Braxton, composer, reed player, professor, MacArthur “genius” grant winner, one-time professional chess hustler.

Happy (Belated 66th) Birthday, Anthony!
(born June 4, 1945)

Anthony Braxton with his 12+1tet, Ghost Trance Music
New York (Iridium), 2008

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

I wanted to live. I wanted to be alive. This experience goes by very quickly. Part of the radiance of a moment, in my opinion, involves that which we call music.

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Suddenly, Coltrane solos become the “it” of music, when in fact, the records and the notated solos are the sonic footprints, the bone structure of what actually happened in the music.

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I wanted a system that would be equal to the dynamics of curiosity. I wanted to have a music where I could have some fun.

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There is the wonderful discipline of music and the ability of music to keep on opening up fresh prospects. I must say, what a discipline!

—Anthony Braxton