trumpet | music clip of the day

Monday, 3/15/10

Two takes, two tempos, two bands—one Miles.

Miles Davis, “So What”

Take 1

With John Coltrane (saxophone), Wynton Kelly (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), Jimmy Cobb (drums), Gil Evans Orchestra; live (TV Broadcast), 1959

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Take 2

With Wayne Shorter (saxophone), Herbie Hancock (piano), Ron Carter (bass), Tony Williams (drums); live (TV broadcast), 1964

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lagniappe

[Many admirers of Kind of Blue] are forced to reach back before the modern era to find its measure. Drummer Elvin Jones hears the same timeless sublimity and depth of feeling ‘in some of the movements of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, or when I hear Pablo Casals play unaccompanied cello.’ ‘It’s like listening to Tosca, says pianist/singer Shirley Horn. ‘ You know, you always cry, or at least I do.’

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Quincy Jones: ‘That will always be my music, man. I play Kind of Blue every day—it’s my orange juice. It still sounds like it was made yesterday.’

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Chick Corea: ‘It’s one thing to just play a tune, or play a program of music, but it’s another thing to practically create a new language of music, which is what Kind of Blue did.’

—Ashley Kahn, Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece (2000)

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Tuesday, 3/9/10

Happy 80th Birthday, Ornette!

Ornette Coleman Quartet (with Don Cherry, trumpet; Charlie Haden, bass; Billy Higgins, drums), live, Spain (Barcelona), 1987

Part 1

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Part 2

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Part 3

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Part 4

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The sounds you don’t hear can mean as much as the ones you do. Here, for instance, it’s hard to overstate the importance of what isn’t onstage—a harmony instrument (piano, guitar). Without it, the drums move forward in the mix. The bass has more space to fill. The sound of each instrument becomes clearer, more distinct. The group sound becomes lighter, more open.

lagniappe

When we were on relief during the Depression, they’d give us dried-up old cheese and dried milk and we’d get ourselves all filled up and we’d kept this thing going, singing and dancing. I remember that when I play. You have to stick to your roots. Sometimes I play happy. Sometimes I play sad. But the condition of being alive is what I play all the time.

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You know what I realize? That all sound has a need. Otherwise it wouldn’t have a use. Sound has a use. . . . You use it to establish something—an invisible presence or some belief. . . . But isn’t it amazing that sound causes the idea to sound the way it is, more than the idea?

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Music has no face. Whatever gives oxygen its power, music is cut from the same cloth.

—Ornette Coleman

(The first and last quotes are from Ornette’s website. The second is from Ben Ratliff, The Jazz Ear: Conversations over Music [2008].)

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It is not enough to say that Ornette Coleman’s music will affect jazz profoundly, for it already has so affected it, and not only the jazz of younger men but that of some of his elders as well. His music represents the first fundamental reevaluation of basic materials and basic procedures for jazz since the innovations of Charlie Parker. ‘Let’s play the music and not the background,’ Coleman has said. And when someone does something with the passion and deep conviction of an Ornette Coleman, I doubt if there could be any turning back; it seems mandatory somehow for others somehow to respond to his work.—Martin Williams, The Jazz Tradition (2d rev. ed. 1993)

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Radio Ornette: all Ornette, all the time

Want more? In celebration of Ornette’s birthday, one of my favorite radio stations, WKCR-FM (at Columbia University), is playing his music all day.

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2010

Wednesday, 3/3/10

What other pop star has made such stunning contributions as a guest artist?

Sinead O’Connor

With Willie Nelson, “Don’t Give Up”

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With the Chieftains, “The Foggy Dew”

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With Shane MacGowan, “Haunted”

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2010

Friday, 2/19/10

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

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2010

Friday, 2/12/10

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”

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“I’m In Love”

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“Ninety-Nine And A Half (Won’t Do)”

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“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”

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2010

Tuesday, 2/9/10

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)

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2010

Wednesday, 2/3/10

Last week we heard the Blues Busters and the Maytals.

Here’s a very young Jimmy Cliff.

Jimmy Cliff, “King of Kings,” live, Jamaica (Kingston [Sombrero Club]), 1962

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lagniappe

The Sound System was and is an integral part of the Jamaican social scene especially the working class who rely on this for their entertainment and social life. The middle and upper class fly to Miami and N.Y while the working class depend on the Sound System, which had an impact on my life from my boyhood days in the countryside of Jamaica where I could listen the Sound System at the big upstairs house that was beside the little house where I lived with my Father and my Brother.

This big upstairs downstairs house had a bar called ” Money Rock Tavern ” where the Sound System called “Pope Pius” would play and this was my me only opportunity to hear different kinds of music especially Latino.

My parents were staunch Christians so I was not permitted to associate with those kinds of music so I had to hide and steel away to go to the fair grounds where dances and fairs were held. I could see and learn the latest Dance moves and hear the latest, Rumba, R’n’B, Calypso, Merengay etc…

A little later in my youth life my Father managed to buy a little battery powered radio so I had another opportunity to tune in to American radio particularity New Orleans and Miami, and of course Cuba which is close to Jamaica only 90 miles away. On the local radio station I learned of local Artists writing and recording their own songs so I decided to write my own while still in school, quite a fete for a little country boy but I had high ambitions. Among the locals that inspired me wave Derrick Morgan, Prince Buster and Monty Morris.

After leaving primary school at Somerton my father took me to the capital of Jamaica Kingston to go to Kingston technical school, with a few songs in my head I had written. Where I was going to live was unknown but I ended up in East Kingston. Miss Gwen a stranger Lady said she would cook and wash my clothes while I slept with my cousin in his one rented room.

I was happy to be in Kingston to fulfil my dreams. I tried many producers while still going to school studing radio and tv trying to get the songs recorded without much luck. I entered talent shows and won some and was cheated on some. One night I was walking past a record store and restaurant as they were closing, I pushed myself in and sang for the Chinese owners of the store and convinced one of them Leslie Kong to go into the recording business starting with me.

My second recording with him Hurricane Hattie became a number one hit in Jamaica. I followed that hit up with Miss Jamaica, One Eyed Jacks, King of Kings and Leslie Kong went on to become King Kong among the producers in Jamaica.

This was the ska era of Jamaican Music.—Jimmy Cliff

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2010

Tuesday, 2/2/10

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.

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2010

Thursday, 1/28/10

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

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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.

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With Judith Sanchez Ruiz (dancer), live, New York, 2008