music clip of the day

jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more

Monday, 6/4/12

passings

Pete Cosey, guitar player, October 9, 1943-May 30, 2012

Miles Davis, “Ife,” live, Austria (Vienna), 1973
With Pete Cosey, guitar (solo begins at 5:30) and percussion; Dave Liebman, flute, soprano and tenor saxophones; Reggie Lucas, guitar; Michael Henderson, bass; Al Foster, drums; James Mtume Forman, conga and percussion

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Here’s an earlier post (12/31/09):

In the public imagination, the guitar’s associated with freedom and individuality. The musical reality’s different. Guitarists travel in herds; few stray from the pack. One who has gone his own way is this man, who’s played with everyone from Muddy Waters (as a session musician for Chicago-based Chess Records) to Miles Davis (as a member of his group [1973-1975]). He employs a variety of unusual tunings and effects. He sounds like no one else.

Pete Cosey, guitar

“Calypso Frelimo” (excerpt), Pete Cosey’s Children of Agharta (JT Lewis, drums; Gary Bartz and John Stubblefield, saxophones & flute; Matt Rubano, bass; Johnny Juice, turntables; Baba Israel, words and beats; Kyle Jason, voice; Bern Pizzitola, guitar; Wendy Oxenhorn, harmonica), live, 2002, New York

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Live (with Melvin Gibbs, bass; JT Lewis, drums; Johnny Juice, congas and turntables)

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lagniappe

. . . the guy who, after Hendrix, showed you how ‘out’ you could go with guitar playing, particularly in the improvised context.

—Greg Tate

Sunday, 6/3/12

Vernard Johnson, “Praise Is What I Do”
Live, Detroit, 2007

The sounds he makes on his horn are, to these ears, among the most moving in all of music.

More? Here. And here. And here.

Saturday, 6/2/12

Ever feel like wandering, aimlessly, in a fog?

The Velvet Underground and Nico, directed by Andy Warhol (shot at his NYC studio, The Factory), 1966

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lagniappe

reading table

More than twenty years west of Mount Yen . . .
when the moon lights the summit at night I sing

—Stonehouse, The Zen Works of Stonehouse: Poems and Talks of a Fourteenth Century Chinese Hermit (translated from Chinese by Red Pine)

*****

Happy Birthday, Don!

Sixty-two?

I remember when you were twenty-six.

And six.

We met, as I recall, when you were two.

Friday, 6/1/12

keep on dancing

Robyn, live, Belgium (Werchter), 7/3/11

“We Dance to the Beat”/”Don’t Fucking Tell Me What To Do”

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“Indestructible”

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“With Every Heartbeat”

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lagniappe

art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago (between court hearings at the nearby federal court building)

Dawoud Bey, Harlem, U.S.A. (late 1970s), through 9/9/12

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Thursday, 5/31/12

passings

Arthel Lane “Doc” Watson, singer, guitar player, songwriter
March 3, 1923-May 29, 2012 

“Deep River Blues,” 1960s

Country musicians who love blues, blues musicians who love country (as I frequently encountered years ago working at Alligator Records): stories of race and music are often complex, resisting reduction to black and white.

Wednesday, 5/30/12

old stuff

Fred Astaire (with Ginger Rogers), “I Won’t Dance”
Roberta, 1935

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lagniappe

radio

Driving around yesterday afternoon, I happened upon a new series on NPR’s All Things Considered, “Mom and Dad’s Record Collection.” “[M]usicians, writers, even politicians” talk about a “song they discovered through a parent and how it shaped them.” First up was singer and actress Audra McDonald, who can be heard here.

Tuesday, 5/29/12

two takes

“Human Nature” (S. Porcaro & J. Bettis)

Vijay Iyer Trio (VI, piano; Stephan Crump, bass; Marcus Gilmore, drums), live (studio performance [KPLU-FM]), 2011

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Michael Jackson, recording (Thriller), 1982

Monday, 5/28/12

Sometimes a drought lasts so long it ceases to be noticed.

What’s missing from our world?

Elegance.

Gene Kelly, Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

Sunday, 5/27/12

two takes

The Mighty Clouds of Joy (feat. Joe Ligon, lead vocals)
“Steal Away To Jesus”

TV show (TV Gospel Time), early 1960s

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Live, South Carolina (Charleston), 1996

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lagniappe

art beat: yesterday at Harvard’s Sackler Museum (Cambridge, Mass.)

Lyonel Feinenger, Black Ice and Fog on the Burgkuhnauer Allee, November 1928

Saturday, 5/26/12

John Luther Adams, “Red Arc/Blue Veil” (excerpt)
Live, University of Kentucky, 2008
Clint Davis, piano
Charlie Olvera, vibraphone, crotales
Jason Corder, Jordan Munson, video

(Originally posted on 2/10/11.)

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

One of the functions of music is to remind us how much more beautiful the world is than it needs to be.