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Great horn players don’t play—they sing.
Pharoah Sanders (tenor saxophone, with Paul Arslanian, harmonium), “Kazuko,” live, California (Marin Headland), 1982
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lagniappe
Trane was the father. Pharoah was the son. I was the holy ghost.
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Want more of the late Albertina Walker?
This week’s Gospel Memories (WLUW-FM)—available here—is devoted entirely to her music.
Today, celebrating our 400th post, we revisit a few favorites.
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street music
Whatever it is, this guy’s got it.
(Originally posted on 8/25/10.)
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take two (or is it one?)
Following up on Vijay Iyer’s take (6/30/10), here’s the original.
M.I.A., “Galang” (2005)
One of the things I love about M.I.A. is that she doesn’t let any of the usual stuff get in her way. Take her dancing, for instance: she’s, uh, not real good at it—at least not by the usual standards. Does that stop her? Nah.
(Originally posted on 7/2/10.)
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Guitar, drums—that’s all it takes.
Bambino (AKA Bombino), live, Niger (Agadez), 2010
Part 1
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Part 2
(Originally posted on 8/9/10.)
If you’re in a dark mood, the last thing you want is something light.
Alfred Schnittke, String Trio (1985)/Moscow Conservatory, live
Want more of Schnittke’s music? Here.
Solomon Burke, March 21, 1940-October 10, 2010
Live (TV broadcast), England, 2003
“Everybody Needs Somebody To Love”
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“None Of Us Are Free”
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“Cry To Me,” live, Spain (Vitoria), 2004
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“Don’t Give Up On Me,” live
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lagniappe
The best soul singer of all time.
—Jerry Wexler, Solomon Burke’s producer at Atlantic Records (also produced Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, et al.)
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Every day I’m on the phone ministering to people. I’ve had so many people say to me, “What should I believe in?” I tell ’em, “Just believe in what’s real and makes you feel good. Whatever moves you, go there.”
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Every day they had a service [at my grandmother’s House of Prayer for All People], and the music never stopped. There was always a band with two or three trombones, tambourines, cymbals, guitars, pianos. When I speak of music, I get choked up. It was a message to God, something you feel down to your bones and your soul and your heart.
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I’ve learned to forgive Jerry [Wexler] . . . I’m also waiting for my check.
—Solomon Burke (in Charles M. Young, “King Solomon’s Sweet Thunder,” Rolling Stone, 5/27/10)
Albertina Walker, October 29, 1929-October 8, 2010
“I Can Go To God In Prayer” (joined, at the end, by Patti LaBelle), live, Chicago, 1991
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“Please Be Patient With Me” (with James Cleveland), live, Chicago, 1979
This track, which I first encountered 30 years ago, I never tire of hearing.
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“Lord Keep Me Day By Day,” live (James Cleveland’s funeral), Los Angeles, 1991
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lagniappe
Somebody gonna leave here feeling a little better than they did when they came in . . .
—Albertina Walker
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Happy Birthday, Monk!
In celebration of the birthday of Thelonious Monk (October 10, 1917-February 17 1982), WKCR-FM is playing his music all day—and we’re replaying some clips.
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Here is the onliest Thelonious.
Thelonious Monk, “Epistrophy,” live (TV broadcast), Paris, 1966
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Thelonoius Monk, “’Round Midnight,” live (TV broadcast)
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You can tell a lot about Monk’s music—about the centrality of dance, about the interplay between melody and rhythm, about the way a melody’s irregular accents override the pulse (making the dance melodic)—just by watching, in the second performance, the way his right foot moves.
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lagniappe
He played each note as though astonished by the previous one, as though every touch of his fingers on the keyboard was correcting an error and this touch in turn became an error to be corrected and so the tune never quite ended up the way it was meant to be.
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You had to see Monk to hear his music properly. The most important instrument in the group—whatever the format—was his body.
—Geoff Dyer, But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz (1996)
(Originally posted 11/2/09.)
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Yeah, the format might seem a little strange: soprano saxophone, unaccompanied. But Monk’s musical language—its tangy mix of geometric elegance and off-kilter bluesiness—is rarely spoken this eloquently.
Sam Newsome, Thelonious Monk Medley, live, 2008
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lagniappe
The clarity and logic of his [Thelonious Monk’s] work might have been compared with the craft of an architect. Each phrase, each fragment, each plump chord had its exact place in his musicial structure.—Mimi Clar (in Robin D. G. Kelley, Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original [2009])
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‘All jazz musicians are mathematicians unconsciously’ was a favorite theory of Monk’s.—Randy Weston (in Deborah Kapchan, Traveling Spirit Masters: Moroccan Gnawa Trance and Music in the Global Marketplace [2007])
(Originally posted 11/25/09.)
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genius at work
Thelonious Monk with saxophonist Charlie Rouse, working out a number, “Boo Boo’s Birthday,” during a recording session, 1967
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Thelonious Monk (with Charlie Rouse, tenor saxophone; Ben Riley, drums; Larry Gales, bass), “Boo Boo’s Birthday” (Underground [Columbia], 1968)
(Originally posted 12/28/09.)
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What did it sound like when Beethoven, seated at the piano, played Bach? For that we have to use our imagination. For this we don’t.
Thelonious Monk plays Duke Ellington, live, Berlin, 1969
“Satin Doll”
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“Sophisticated Lady”
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“Caravan”
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“Solitude”
(Yo, Michael: Thanks for the tip!)
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lagniappe
[T]he only time I’ve ever seen Monk act like a little boy and looking up to somebody [was in the presence of Duke Ellington]. That was his idol.—Joe Termini (quoted in Robin D. G. Kelley, Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original [2009])
(Originally posted 1/13/10.)
If you ain’t losing, you’re winning.
That’s something I’ve always believed, as a criminal defense lawyer, and it’s something that may be going through the mind of this guy, whose federal trial in Tampa, on drug charges, recently ended in a hung jury and mistrial.
He’d been charged with trying to buy five kilos of cocaine. The defense, apparently, was that he’d been set up (or, in legal parlance, entrapped). A retrial is expected soon.
Bob Marley’s son, Stephen, appearing as a character witness, called him the “voice of the people”—the “voice of Jamaica.”
Buju Banton
“Wanna Be Loved” (1995)
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“Bondage” (2010)
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lagniappe
radio interview (from jail), 3/17/10
Things going wrong?
You’ve come to the right place.
This’ll make you feel all right.
Them (with Van Morrison), “Mystic Eyes,” “Gloria,” live (TV broadcast), France, 1965
How many tracks this terrific have engendered videos this nutty?
Rosanne Cash, “The Wheel” (1993)
Dying and going to heaven—could it sound any sweeter than this vocal track?
Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, “Ooo Baby Baby” (vocal track), 1965
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lagniappe
My mom was a woman who went to church two or three times a week. . . . We had gospel music in the house, and we lived in a black neighborhood, so gospel music is prevalent. I knew Aretha Franklin when I was growing up, and her father was one of the biggest ministers in the country.
—Smokey Robinson
