basement jukebox
Magic Sam (AKA Samuel Maghett, 1937-1969), Cobra Records, Chicago
“All Your Love,” 1957
***
“Love Me with a Feeling,” 1957
***
“Everything Gonna Be Alright,” 1958
***
“21 Days In Jail,” 1958
***
taking a break
I’m taking some time off—back soon.
Kidd Jordan Quartet (KJ, tenor saxophone; Billy Bang, violin; William Parker, bass; Hamid Drake, drums), New York (Vision Festival), 2008
**********
lagniappe
musical thoughts
We tend to take musical instruments for granted, as if their existence were inevitable. But the fact that something exists doesn’t mean it had to. We could’ve been born into a world that never heard a violin.
*****
reading table
“What kind of heaven is that, you can’t have your records?”
—Michael Chabon, Telegraph Avenue
yesterday afternoon
I took a journey that began in late 18th-century Austria, proceeded to mid-20th-century Russia, and concluded in early 20th-century France. Joseph Haydn, Dmitri Shostakovich, Maurice Ravel—they were the hosts. These folks, playing at the University of Chicago’s new Logan Arts Center, were the guides. If one day I learned that my life would be over at midnight, I’d be happy to spend the afternoon, after lunching at a Mexican restaurant (maybe Nuevo Leon on 18th Street), listening to a string quartet.
Pacifica Quartet, New York, 2009; Leo Janacek (1854-1928), String Quartet No. 2 (“Intimate Letters”), first movement
Voices, hands.
Guitar, bass, drums.
And soul.
Sensational Friendly Brothers, Canton, Mississippi (St. James Missionary Baptist Church), 1978
“Where Shall I Be (When the First Trumpet Sounds)”
***
“Heaven Is My Goal”
**********
lagniappe
Thanks, Richard—great clips too.
—George Saunders, featured here the other day
alone
Johann Sebastian Bach, Violin Sonata No. 1 in G minor, 2nd movement (fugue)
Henryk Szeryng (1918-1988), violin
**********
lagniappe
musical thoughts
A world where Bach could be heard via the internet by anyone, anywhere, anytime, could seem, so long as other things were overlooked, a paradise.
***
From an interview with composer and conductor Pierre Boulez:
Q. What is the main problem with young conducting students?
A. They think too much or too little.
a week in New Orleans: day five
Big Freedia
“Na Who Mad,” 2011
***
Talking, walking around town, performing, etc.
Pitchfork TV, 2013
a week in New Orleans: day four
Mardi Gras Indians (Fat Tuesday, 2012)
Wild Magnolias
***
Two Indian Tribes Meet in Treme
a week in New Orleans: day three
Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five
“West End Blues” (Joe “King” Oliver), 1928
*****
King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band
“Dipper Mouth Blues” (Joe “King” Oliver), 1923
**********
lagniappe
reading table
America, to me, should be shouting all the time, a bunch of shouting voices, most of them wrong, some of them nuts, but please, not just one droning glamorous reasonable voice.
—George Saunders, “My Flamboyant Grandson” (In Persuasion Nation)
a week in New Orleans: day two
Bon Mardi Gras
Professor Longhair, December 19, 1918-January 30, 1980
“Mardi Gras in New Orleans” (AKA “Go to the Mardi Gras”), 1950
***
“Big Chief”
***
“Tipitina” (with the Meters)
