music clip of the day

jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more

Monday, January 6th

passings

Phil Everly, singer, songwriter, guitar player, January 19, 1939-January 3, 2014

“Wake Up Little Susie,” 1957

This song I heard constantly, on the radio, on our basement jukebox, everywhere, when I was five. Twenty years later, I married a woman named Suzanne. Coincidence?

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 “All I Have To Do Is Dream,” “Cathy’s Clown,” 1960

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“Claudette,” “Walk Right Back,” “Crying in the Rain,” “Cathy’s Clown,” “Love Is Strange,” “When Will I Be Loved?,” “So Sad (To Watch Love Go Bad),” “Bird Dog,” “Be-Bop-a-Lula,” “Barbara Allen,” “A Long Time Gone,” “Step It Up and Go,” “Bye Bye Love,” “Wake Up Little Susie,” “Devoted to You,” “Love Hurts,”  “(‘Til) I Kissed You,” “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” “Lucille,” “Let It Be Me,” 1983

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When Phil and I hit that one spot where I call it The Everly Brothers, I don’t know where it is. ‘Cause it’s not me and it’s not him. It’s the two of us together.

—Don Everly

Sunday, January 5th

five takes

“If I Had My Way I’d Tear The Building Down,” AKA “If I Had My Way,” “Samson and Delilah”

Blind Willie Johnson, recording, 1927

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Reverend Gary Davis, live (TV show)

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Peter Paul & Mary, live (TV show)

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Grateful Dead, live, New York (Radio City Music Hall), 1980

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Bruce Springsteen, live, Italy (Verona), 2006

Saturday, January 4th

Lucid, supple, propulsive: This stuff I could listen to all day.

Steve Lehman Octet (SL, alto saxophone; Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet; Tim Albright, trombone; Jeremy Viner, tenor saxophone; Jose Avila, tuba; Chris Dingman, vibraphone; Drew Gress, bass; Tyshawn Sorey, drums)

Live, Germany (Moers Festival), 2010

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Live, 2011

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lagniappe

art beat

Lee Friedlander (1934-), Japan (Tokyo), 1981

Friedlander-Cherry-Blossom-Time-47

Friday, January 3rd

what’s new

Darkside, live, Paris (Pitchfork Music Festival), 10/31/13


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lagniappe

art beat

Lee Friedlander (1934-), Japan (Kyoto), 1981

1. Kyoto, 1981

Thursday, January 2nd

another take

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), Nocturne in D-flat major, Op. 27, No. 2; Dinu Lipatti (1917-1950), piano


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lagniappe

musical thoughts

Things didn’t have to be this way: you could have been born into a world without music.

Wednesday, January 1st

Something quiet, and lyrical, and beautiful to begin the year.

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), Nocturne in D-flat major, Op. 27, No. 2; Shura Cherkassky (1909-1995), piano, 1956


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lagniappe

reading table

year after year—
the monkey wearing
a monkey’s mask

—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), New Year’s Day, 1693 (translated from Japanese by David Landis Barnhill)

Tuesday, December 31st

never enough

Johann Sebastian Bach, Partita No. 2 in C minor, BWV 826; Martha Argerich, piano, live, Switzerland (Verbier Festival), 2008


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lagniappe

radio

WKCR’s Bach Festival, now in its tenth day, concludes at midnight.

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reading table

Those who love their own noise are impatient of everything else. . . . Our noise, our business, our purposes, and all our fatuous statements about our purposes, our business, and our noise: these are the illusion.

—Thomas Merton, No Man Is An Island

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no passport needed

This year folks from ninety-five countries stopped by to listen. Welcome, all.

Monday, December 30th

five takes

“Burning Love” (D. Linde)

Arthur Alexander, recording, 1972


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Elvis Presley, live, Greensboro, N.C., 1972


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Elvis Presley, recording, 1972


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Bruce Springstein, live, Italy (Florence), 2012


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The Korean Black Eyes, recording, 1974


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lagniappe

art beat

Weegee (AKA Arthur Fellig, 1899-1968)

weegee_09

Sunday, December 29th

One of my favorite live gospel recordings.

Brother Joe May (joined by members of the Sallie Martin Singers), “Move On Up A Little Higher,” live, early 1950s

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lagniappe

radio

Today, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.,  WKCR-FM (Columbia University), continuing its Bach Festival, features cellist Pablo Casals.

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reading table

Poverty kept me from thinking all was well under the sun and in history; the sun taught me that history is not everything.

—Albert Camus (translated from French by Ellen Conroy Kennedy)

Saturday, December 28th

never enough

Johann Sebastian Bach, Suite No. 3 in C major for Unaccompanied Cello; Jean-Guihen Queyras, live, c. 2007


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lagniappe

radio

WKCR’s annual Bach Festival continues through New Year’s Eve.

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random thoughts

Life is one long lesson in learning how to breathe.