recipe
1 river
1 bridge
1 brass band
Mix lightly.
Raya Brass Band, live, Poughkeepsie, New York
Walkway Over The Hudson Grand Opening, 10/3/09
#1
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#2
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#3
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#5
old stuff
Best two minutes of the whole day?
Jimmie Lunceford and his Orchestra (with Jimmy Crawford, drums)
“White Heat,” 1939
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
It’s difficult to name one favorite drummer, because . . . I’ve got a lot of favorites. But Jimmy Crawford—they called him “Craw”—with the Jimmie Lunceford band? He was a motherfucker.
*****
reading table
How should I not be glad to contemplate
The clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
And a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
There will be dying, there will be dying,
But there is no need to go into that.
The lines flow from the hand unbidden
And the hidden source is the watchful heart.
The sun rises in spite of everything
And the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
Watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right.—Derek Mahon, “Everything Is Going to Be All Right”
Labels are often worse than useless. This guy, for instance, is often tagged as “cerebral.” But here’s something you can’t—I can’t, anyway—listen to without smiling.
Anthony Braxton, Composition No. 58
Taylor Ho Bynum Chicago Big Band,* live, 2009, Chicago
*****
Here’s another take—Braxton’s original recording (The Complete Arista Recordings of Anthony Braxton [Mosaic], rec. 1976).
More? Here.
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lagniappe
reading table
To obtain the value
of a sound, a movement,
measure from zero.***
A sound has no legs to stand on.
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The world is teeming: anything can
happen.—John Cage, “2 Pages, 122 Words on Music and Dance” (excerpts)
*Taylor Ho Bynum & Josh Berman (cor), Jaimie Branch (tpt), Jeb Bishop & Nick Broste (tb), Nicole Mitchell (fl), Caroline Davis, Keefe Jackson & Dave Rempis (saxes), Jeff Parker (g), Jason Adasiewicz (vib), Nate McBride (b), Tim Daisy & Tomas Fujiwara (d)
This guy sounded so good the other day—let’s hear some more.
B.B. King with T-Bone Walker, “Bad News”/“Sweet Sixteen”
Live, Monterey Jazz Festival (Monterey, California), 9/16/1967
Happy (Belated) 70th Birthday, Lester!
Lester Bowie, October 11, 1941-November 8, 1999
trumpet player, bandleader, irrepressible spirit
Lester Bowie Brass & Steel Band, Umbria Jazz Festival (Italy), 1996
Part 1
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Part 2
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Part 3
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Part 4
More? Here. And here. And here. And here. And here.
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Jazz is neither specific repertoire nor academic exercise . . . but a way of life.
—Lester Bowie
three takes
Blues guitarists—great ones, anyway—aren’t instrumentalists; they’re singers with two voices.
“Born Under A Bad Sign” (W. Bell, B.T. Jones)
Albert King, live, Sweden, 1980
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
Albert King, recording, 1967 (Stax)
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
Jimi Hendrix, recorded in 1969 (Blues, 1994)
Vodpod videos no longer available.What makes this last take effective? Part of it is the phrasing: Jimi, like Albert, doesn’t play anything that couldn’t be sung.
More Albert? Here.
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”
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
Live, “Pouring Water on a Drowning Man”
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
“The Dark End of the Street” (D. Penn & C. Moman), Goldwax, 1967
Vodpod videos no longer available.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.
Miles Davis Quintet (MD, trumpet; Wayne Shorter, tenor saxophone; Herbie Hancock, piano; Ron Carter, bass; Tony Williams, drums), “Footprints” (W. Shorter), live, Sweden, 1967
Vodpod videos no longer available.Time for just one note? 3:34. (Shorter’s entire solo is a marvel [1:54-3:54]: it’s as intimate and delicate as a dream.)
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lagniappe
reading table
just the other day
we said goodbye . . .
dewy grave—Kobayashi Issa, 1790s (trans. David G. Lanoue)
What’s surprising here isn’t that there are so many wonderful moments. Given the line-up, you’d expect that. What you wouldn’t expect is for these guys to sound so cohesive, as if they’d been playing together for years.
Sun Ra All Stars (SR, keyboards; Don Cherry, pocket trumpet, vocals; Lester Bowie, trumpet; Archie Shepp, tenor saxophone, vocals; John Gilmore, tenor saxophone; Marshall Allen, alto saxophone, percussion; Philly Joe Jones, drums; Clifford Jarvis, drums; Famadou Don Moye, drums, percussion), live, Germany (Berlin), 1983
Vodpod videos no longer available.More Sun Ra? Here. And here. And here.
More Don Cherry? Here. And here. And here.
More Lester Bowie? Here. And here. And here. And here.
More Archie Shepp? Here.
Happy Birthday, Bird!
Charlie Parker, alto saxophonist, August 29, 1920-March 12, 1955
According to Miles Davis, the history of jazz can be summarized in four words: Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker.
Charlier Parker & Dizzy Gillespie, “Hot House,” live (TV broadcast), 1952
(Originally posted 10/17/09.)
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lagniappe
radio
WKCR-FM’s Lester Young/Charlie Parker birthday marathon runs until midnight—today’s all Bird.
*****
musical thoughts
Don’t play the saxophone. Let it play you.
—Charlie Parker
music clip of the day 