She is—to borrow from Duke Ellington—beyond category.
Patsy Cline, live (TV broadcasts)
“Three Cigarettes (In An Ashtray),” 1957
*****
“Crazy,” 1962
*****
“I Fall To Pieces,” 1963
Here’s a big (60th!) birthday shout-out to my brother Don.
How could we ever have gone wrong musically, given where we started?
Perry Como, “Hot Diggity (Dog Ziggity Boom),” live (TV broadcast), 1956
so much depends
upon
a jacket’s
unbuttoning
—William Carlos Williams (after seeing Jackie Wilson)
Jackie Wilson, “No Pity (In The Naked City),” live (TV broadcast), 1965
**********
lagniappe
At the 1984 Grammy Awards, Michael Jackson dedicated his Album of the Year award (for Thriller) to Jackie Wilson, telling the audience:
In the entertainment business, there are leaders and there are followers. And I just want to say that I think Jackie Wilson was a wonderful entertainer . . . I love you and thank you so much.
*****
Michael Jackson studied Jackie Wilson, mimicked him, emulated him, subjected himself to his discipline. He covered ‘Lonely Teardrops’ when he was a teenager, and to some extent sang it the rest of his life.—Tom Junod
impeccable, adj. faultless, flawless; irreproachable. E.g., Hank Jones.
Hank Jones, July 31, 1918-May 16, 2010
“Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin’,” live, Paris, 2009
*****
“This Is This” (with Joe Lovano, saxophone), live
*****
“Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child” (with Charlie Haden, bass), 1995
**********
lagniappe
When you listen to a pianist, each note should have an identity, each note should have a soul of its own.—Hank Jones
*****
Really dumb!
You’re sitting, in 1926, in the back of a little church in Dallas. It’s hot and the windows are open. This woman, who’s been at the piano since you walked in, begins to play.
Arizona Dranes, piano, “Crucifixion,” 1926
Sometimes you don’t feel like Beethoven.
Or Miles Davis.
Or the Soul Stirrers.
What you want is a jolt.
Micachu & The Shapes, “Lips”
**********
lagniappe
This is what I call PR.
[Mica Levi of Micachu & The Shapes is] the most singular artist leading the future-pop frontier, with an instinctual understanding of music only possible from one of those rare lives where rhythms, melodies, discord and noise have underpinned every last waking second.
***
Born in Guildford and raised in Watford, Mica Levi couldn’t have had much more of a musical upbringing if she was conceived between Mozart and an oboe and forced to grow up inside a grand piano.
***
‘Lips’ is a short, sharp procession of maddening fret-hits and taunting vocal refrains that lead you everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
*****
live music on the radio
One of my favorite radio stations, WFMU-FM, is broadcasting live today from the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona: the Almighty Defenders, Cold Cave, Van Dyke Parks, et al.
two takes
“La-La Means I Love You”
The Delfonics, live, 2008 (originally recorded 1968)
*****
Bill Frisell, live, New York (Rochester), 2007
Chicago, Texas, Louisiana, West Coast—blues comes in lots of different shades.
Freddie King, with Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown; live (TV broadcast [The !!!! Beat]), 1966
Part 1
*****
Part 2 (“Funnybone”)
*****
Part 3 (“Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag”)
Funeral last week.
Ill this week.
What to listen to?
Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111/Claudio Arrau, piano (1970)
1st Movement
*****
2nd Movement
#1
#2
lagniappe
A fascinating lecture-recital on this sonata, by pianist Andras Schiff, can be heard here.
*****
Speaking of the second movement, pianist Alfred Brendel said:
. . . perhaps nowhere else in piano literature does mystical experience feel so immediately close at hand.
more music from Mali
Bassekou Kouyate (ngoni) & Ngoni ba
“Ngoni fola” (2007)
*****
Live, Mali (Timbuktu), 2010
*****
Live, Germany (Rostock), 2007
