The Cubs couldn’t seem to make up their minds this season. Were they—as often seemed to be the case—god-awful? Or, taking the longer view, were they simply mediocre? Oh, well. Instead of dwelling on this dismal season, let’s remember one of the brightest spots in Chicago baseball history. Here’s the finest musician ever to work between the foul lines: blues and boogie-woogie piano player Jimmy Yancey, who, for 25 years (1925-50), was a White Sox groundskeeper.
Jimmy Yancey, “Rolling the Stone” (1939)
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“I can’t believe the season is over—but it is.”—WGN Radio Cubs broadcaster Pat Hughes, after yesterday’s game (a loss to Arizona, 5-2)
On July 22, 1955, Sam Cooke took the stage at Los Angeles’s Shrine Auditorium. He was 24 years old. He sang that day with the Soul Stirrers, the gospel group he joined—as the new lead singer—when he was 19.
Sam Cooke with the Soul Stirrers, “Nearer My God To Thee,” live, 1955, Los Angeles
More:
Sam Cooke with the Soul Stirrers, “Be With Me Jesus,” live, 1955, Los Angeles
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Sam [Cooke] was shaped in large measure by the Soul Stirrers during their rehearsals. He reacted to them as they pushed him, like a good rhythm section inspires an instrumentalist.—Art Rupe (in Peter Guralnick, Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke [2005])
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Of course, Sam did his best work in gospel. How you gonna take somebody who loves what he’s doing and turn him around and put him in something unfamiliar and he’s gonna be as free and natural as he was at home?—Dorothy Love Coates (in Anthony Heilbut, The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times [1971])
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reading table
How astonishing to see, yesterday, for the first time, a film snippet (the only known to exist) of Anne Frank.
This apparently dates from 1941, when Anne was 13. The couple walking out of the building are newlyweds—the woman’s a neighbor. That’s Anne leaning out the window.
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Yesterday I also heard this episode of the radio show “This American Life,” which features people whose lives were changed by books.
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Also yesterday (bigday), while driving around doing this and that, I heard bits and pieces of this interview with the great Nick Hornby (author of, among other things, High Fidelity).
Here, following up on Wednesday’s post, are two New Orleans drummers who embrace the Muhammad Ali aesthetic: float like a butterfly (0:56-1:58, etc.), sting like a bee (1:59, etc.).
Dwayne Williams and Jason Slack, live (before a gig), Hudson, New York
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You could always tell a New Orleans drummer the minute you heard him play his bass drum because he’d have that parade beat connotation.—Earl Palmer
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From yesterday’s Cubs radio broadcast (during a truly miserable loss—12-3 to Arizona—in a season that’s been full of ’em), here’s Pat Hughes on partner Ron Santo’s career as a base-stealer: “35 stolen bases, 41 times caught stealing: that’s sort of a risky proposition—but I bet the umpires missed a lot of calls.”
The other night, when I saw Sheila Jordan (9/28/09 post), she dedicated a number to Ella: “No one else could scat like that.”
Ella Fitzgerald, “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing),” TV performance, 1974
(One of the great things about music is that it gives you a chance to get to know some great people—like, for instance, Linda Van Dyke, reed player, teacher, person extraordinaire, who sent me this clip.)
With summer giving way to fall, how ’bout a little trip down to Hattiesburg, Mississippi? There, at T-Bone’s Records & Coffee, you’ll find, over in a corner, Johnny Vidacovich, longtime New Orleans drummer—he’s played at every one of the 40 annual New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festivals—playing, singing, chatting, goofing.
Johnny Vidacovich, live, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, 2009
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Part 2
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Part 6
Most drummers I couldn’t listen to for five minutes. This guy I could listen to all day. Why? Because his playing is relaxed and unshowy. He makes use of space. Instead of trying to bowl you over, he invites you in.
With a big shout-out to my older son Alex, here—on his birthday (22!)—is a small sampling of the music he’s opened my ears to.
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The Very Best
Here’s something he emailed me just last week—new sounds out of Africa (by way of England).
The Very Best, “Julia”
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The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Here’s a show he saw over the summer, while living in New York.
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, live, NYC (South Street Seaport), 7/09
“Come Saturday”
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“Everything With You”
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“The Pains of Being Pure at Heart”
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Amadou & Mariam
I might have gotten around to Amadou & Mariam sooner or later on my own, but thanks to Alex—who played me their (wonderful) album Dimanche a Bamako a few years ago—I got to this Malian duo sooner. (He and I saw them together, at Chicago’s Park West, in May, just a few months after this performance.)
Amadou & Mariam, “Sebeke,” live, Paris, 2008
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Talib Kweli
Several years ago, thanks to Alex, I first heard this hip-hop artist’s (terrific) album Quality.
Talib Kweli, “Get By,” live, NYC, 2007
Want to hear the original studio track? Here. (Yeah, that’s Kanye at 1:20 and again at 3:24—he produced this track.)
(For all you hip-hop-&-law trivia buffs, Kweli’s the answer to the following question: What hip-hop artist has a brother who’s a professor at a top law school? [Jamal Greene, Columbia].)
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Want to see the world (bits and pieces of it, anyway) through the eyes of one now-22-year-old? Here. Here. Here.
Sheila Jordan has an instantly identifiable sound. But her singing, though idiosyncratic, isn’t just that. Saturday night, when I heard her perform at Chicago’s Green Mill, her musical language—her elastic phrasing, her sliding pitches, her often off-center approach to harmony—was so clear and vivid that, by the end of the second set, I felt as though I was hearing the world through her ears.
Sheila Jordan, “The Water Is Wide,” live, Paris, 2003 (75th birthday concert)
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“The main thing is the feeling, and that comes across no matter what she [Sheila Jordan] does. In terms of instruments, maybe her instrument—her voice—is not as great as some. It doesn’t really matter. She sings one note and you know it’s Sheila. Unfortunately there are very, very, very few singers left now who are really unique. And she’s one of the last ones.”—Steve Kuhn
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Want more? Here’s a review I wrote, many years ago, of another of Sheila’s performances, also at the Green Mill, for the Chicago Reader.
Sometimes, as in yesterday’s performance by Sam and Dave, more is more. Other times, as here, what drives a performance is the power of restraint.
Mahalia Jackson, joined by Nat King Cole, “Steal Away,” TV performance, 1957
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“Without a song, each day would be a century.”—Mahalia Jackson
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In the baseball/music trivia department, I learned yesterday, while listening to the radio broadcast of the Cubs/Giants game, that both of Barry Zito’s parents worked with Nat King Cole—his mother as a singer and his father as a conductor/arranger.
