music clip of the day

jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more

Category: trumpet

Monday, 1/10/11

Happy Birthday, Max!

No drummer is more clear, more precise, more melodic.

Max Roach, January 10, 1924-August 16, 2007

“The Third Eye,” live

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“The Drum Also Waltzes” (Drums Unlimited), 1966

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With Sonny Rollins (saxophone), “St. Thomas” (Saxophone Colossus), 1956

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With Clifford Brown (trumpet), “Sweet Clifford” (Brown and Roach Incorporated), 1955

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With Dizzy Gillespie (trumpet), Charlie Parker (saxophone), Bud Powell (piano), Charles Mingus (bass), “Salt Peanuts,” live, 1953

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

In this music, you have to find out who you are, what you feel, what you want to say. That’s one of the reasons that it’s so American. You have to be yourself.

That’s also one way jazz is different from classical music. In classical music, you learn to study and come up with the finest interpretation of a work that you can. That’s a different way of expressing your personality. You have to learn to use what’s written already to express yourself. In jazz, you have to learn to be who you are, and create the music from that.

—Max Roach (in Gene Santoro, Highway 61 Revisited [2004])

*****

radio

Today it’s all Max all day at WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University).


Friday, 1/7/11

This would be riveting even with the sound off.

James Brown, “I Got You (I Feel Good),” live (TV broadcast), c. 1965

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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.

Thursday, 1/6/11

street music

The brass band goes uptown.

Asphalt Orchestra, live, New York

#1 (2009)

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#2 (2010)

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Monday, 1/3/11

Perhaps the greatest drummer who has ever lived . . .

—Brian Eno

Tony Allen

Live, “New Morning”

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Secret Agent, 2010

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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

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You get to decide what to worship.

David Foster Wallace

Zadie Smith, Changing My Mind (2009), epigraphs

Thursday, 12/9/10

Some music asks nothing more than to be a source of delight.

Wim Mertens Ensemble, “Maximizing the Audience,” live, Spain (Madrid), 1998

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Tuesday, 12/7/10

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

Monday, 12/6/10

Here’s more from the city that does death like no other.

Funeral for Juanita Brooks, New Orleans, 2009

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lagniappe

Here’s a taste of the Syl Johnson show I recently saw.

Syl Johnson, “Same Kind of Thing,” live, Chicago, 11/27/10

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Thursday, 12/2/10

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.

Friday, 11/26/10

Deep, wide, strong: the groove, with this guy at the drums, is like a river.

The Levon Helm Band with guest Jim Keltner (drums), “Deep Ellum Blues,” live, Los Angeles (Greek Theater), 8/15/10

Thursday, 11/25/10

How many pop stars have given thanks so memorably?

Sly & The Family Stone

“Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin),” live (TV broadcast), 1973

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“Thankful N’ Thoughtful,” 1973

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Michael Jackson and
George Clinton and
Miles Davis

Big influence on all three?

Short list.

James Brown
Sly Stone