music clip of the day

jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
2010

Saturday, 8/14/10

replay: a clip too good for just one day

I first heard this music—Bach’s Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello—nearly 40 years ago. At the local public library where I was going to college, I happened upon some recordings—a boxed set of three LPs on the Mercury label—by Janos Starker, which I proceeded to check out over and over again. In the years since, first on my turntable and then my CD player, a lot of music has come and gone. These pieces have remained.

Bach, Suite No. 3 in C Major for Unaccompanied Cello/Janos Starker, cello, live, Tokyo, 1988

1st Movement (Prelude)

2nd Movement (Allemande)

3rd Movement (Courante)

4th Movement (Sarabande)

5th Movement (Bourree)

6th Movement (Gigue)

(Originally posted on 10/19/09.)

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2010

Friday, 8/13/10

three takes

I don’t often feel like listening to someone named after a punctuation mark, but when I do I know just where to turn.

? and the Mysterians, “96 Tears”

With Ronnie Spector, live, New York, 2010

*****

Live, New York (1998)

*****

TV broadcast, 1966

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langiappe

inscrutable instructions

Amazon: Express Checkout with Payphrase

To use Express Checkout on Amazon.com and across the web,
create a PayPhrase like “Richard’s Overarching Dentist”

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2010

Thursday, 8/12/10

my new mantra

Say ‘bye bye, bogeyman.’

—Whispering Jack Smith

Whispering Jack Smith, “Happy Days” (Happy Days [shot in 1929, released in 1930])

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lagniappe

more music to chase away the bogeyman

Sidney Bechet (clarinet, with Henry “Red” Allen, trumpet; J.C. Higginbotham, trombone; James Tolliver, piano; Wellman Braud, bass; J.C. Heard, drums), “Egyptian Fantasy” (1941)

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2010

Wednesday, 8/11/10

Anyone can play fast.

Ben Webster (tenor saxophone, with Kenny Drew, piano; Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, bass; Alex Riel, drums), “How Long Has This Been Going On?”; live

Want more? Here. Here.

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2010

Tuesday, 8/10/10

The lineup Bambino and Group Inerane use today in the West African desert—two electric guitars, drums—is the one this guy used, 40 years ago, on Chicago’s south side.

Hound Dog Taylor, live, Chicago, 1971

Want more? Here.

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lagniappe

Spiritual Stars Singers

Silver Wings

Amazing Mentholiers

Chosen Wonders

Rev. R. Campbell and His Wonder Boy

Rhythmical Wright Singers

Willie Harris and the Sensational Six

Never heard of ’em? I hadn’t either. Now you can hear all of ’em in the latest installment of Sinner’s Crossroads (8/5/10), Kevin Nutt’s weekly “gospel extravaganza.” (This one’s so good I’ve already played it twice.)

*****

“dark dismal-dreaming night” *

Listen to the Cubs lose at four in the afternoon?

Anyone can do that.

You’ve gotta be crazy to listen to them lose at 1:00 a.m (Giants, 11th inning, 4-3).

*W. Shakespeare

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2010

Monday, 8/9/10

Guitar, drums—that’s all it takes.

Bombino (AKA Bambino), live, Niger (Agadez), 2010

Part 1

*****

Part 2

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2010

Sunday, 8/8/10

The gospel according to Al Green: Blessed are the lost for they will be found.

Al Green, “Amazing Grace”/“Nearer My God To Thee,” live, 1983 (Gospel According to Al Green, 1984)

More Al Green? Here.

Sam Cooke’s take on “Nearer My God To Thee”? Here.

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2010

Saturday, 8/7/10

Let’s lift the bandstand.

—Thelonious Monk

Woody Shaw/Johnny Griffin Quintet (Woody Shaw, trumpet; Johnny Griffin, tenor saxophone; John Hicks, piano; Reggie Johnson, bass; Alvin Queens, drums), “Night in Tunisia,” live, Germany (Koln), 1986

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lagniappe

Now there’s a great trumpet player. He [Woody Shaw] can play different from all of them.

—Miles Davis

*****

Anthony Braxton on playing with Woody Shaw.

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reading table

Look after the sound and the sense will take care of itself.

—Adam Phillips, London Review of Books, 7/22/10 (reviewing Christopher Ricks’ True Friendship: Geoffrey Hill, Anthony Hecht and Robert Lowell Under The Sign Of Eliot And Pound)

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2010

Friday, 8/6/10

How quaint they seem today—the predictions made, years ago, that drum machines would make flesh-and-blood drummers obsolete.

The Black Keys, “Too Afraid To Love You”

Recording Studio (Muscle Shoals, Alabama), Brothers (2010)

***

Live, New York, 2010

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lagniappe

record shopping with a Black Key

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2010

Thursday, 8/5/10

He doesn’t pummel the beat, the way so many drummers do.

He pulls it out of the air.

Jo Jones (“Papa Jo” [as distinguished from “Philly Joe“]), October 7, 1911-September 3, 1985

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lagniappe

[W]hat really distinguished the great drummers I heard growing up, what really attracted me to men such as Sonny Greer, Chick Webb, Sid Catlett, Jo Jones and Kenny Clarke was that they all thought like composers, they all had their own way of hearing a band. They were all original thinkers who identified themselves when they played. And they stood out. They played like leaders.

—Max Roach

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