music clip of the day

jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
2009

Friday, 9/25/09

Soul Music Festival/day 2 of 3

Buddy Holly, Patsy Cline, Stevie Ray Vaughan, this guy: if you could somehow revive all the folks who’ve died falling out of the sky, you’d have a hell of a band.

Otis Redding, “Try a Little Tenderness,” live, Norway, 1967

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give the drummer some/part 2

Listen to the double-time pattern Al Jackson begins playing at the start of the second verse (0:47): what a subtle, rippling urgency it creates.

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lagniappe

“[Otis would] keep pushing, and each time Al Jackson would go with him. He would enable the rest of the musicians to reach whatever Otis was trying for. Otis would record stripped to the waist. He put bath towels under his arms. He wanted those horn players live on the floor; he’d sing their parts to them and put that whole session together. Otis got a live feel that nobody else on that label [Stax] ever got.”—Jim Dickinson (in Peter Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music [1986]; for more on Dickinson, see the 9/9/09 post)

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Bassist Duck Dunn (also in Guralnick’s book):

— “Otis would come in [the studio], and, boy, he’d just bring everybody up. ‘Cause you knew something was gonna be different. When Otis was there, it was just a revitalization of the whole thing. You wanted to play with Otis. He brought out the best in you. If there was a best, he brought it out. That was his secret.”

— “When you talked to him [Otis Redding], he was like you was. Then you see him on stage. Hey, there ain’t too many people wear the crown. Elvis wore it, and I guess Frank Sinatra wore it. And here he comes, and, boy, he wore it. He wore that halo. He knew it. He was a goddam star.”

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At Redding’s 1996 Whiskey A Go Go shows in Los Angeles, Bob Dylan “presented Redding with a prerelease copy of ‘Just Like A Woman,’ claiming his vocal approach had been Otis-inspired. ‘Otis’ appraisal of it,’ says [Phil] Walden, ‘was that it had too damn many words in it.'”—Carol Cooper

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2009

Thursday, 9/24/09

Soul Music Festival/day 1 of 3

“So there’s this black guy, see, and he walks onto the stage of a concert hall in Norway, and this guy starts singing, in this Norwegian concert hall, ‘Do you like good music, that sweet soul music,’ and . . .”

Arthur Conley, “Sweet Soul Music,” live, Norway, 1967

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give the drummer some

Listening to this performance, I’m reminded of what a terrific drummer Al Jackson was—how essential he was to the Memphis sound. Not only could he drive a band, hard, through the turnarounds (1:23-1:32, etc.); he could play with such lightness and buoyancy—just listen to what he does with the ride cymbal—that the groove floated (0:18-1:22, etc.).

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later note

One of the hazards of posting YouTube clips is that sometimes, as here, they disappear on you. But here (for the moment, anyway) is a shorter snippet from that same Arthur Conley performance (the times for the Al Jackson stuff referenced above are a little different here [the first turnaround, for instance, comes at 1:08-1:17]).

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lagniappe

“Memphis is an ugly place, but I love it. People who wouldn’t have stood a chance anywhere else were recorded here. And have traditionally been drawn here, because, I guess, it’s always been a center for crazy people.”—Jim Dickinson (in Peter Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music [1986]; for more on Dickinson, see the 9/9/09 post)

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2009

Wednesday, 9/23/09

May, 2012

Nobel-Prize-winning economist devises a way to turn faces—images of them, that is—into marketable commodities: the more expressive the face, the greater the value.

March, 2013

Haiti is named one of the world’s wealthiest countries.

Arcade Fire, “Haiti”

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2009

Tuesday, 9/22/09

Mary Travers, who died last week at the age of 72, was one of the first recording artists I ever heard perform live. I don’t recall the exact year, but it would have been in the early 1960s, when I was nearing the end of elementary school or just starting junior high. My father, responding to our growing musical enthusiasm, took my older brother (Don) and me to see Peter, Paul, and Mary, who were performing at one of Chicago’s midsized concert halls (which one, I’m not sure at the moment [old age, etc.]; it would have been the Auditorium, Orchestra Hall, the Opera House, or the Arie Crown Theater).

The details of the music we heard that night are fuzzy. But what I do remember, vividly, with this and other shows that we saw together in the early ’60s (Kingston Trio, Beach Boys, et al.), is how exciting it was, at that age, to hear live music—what an event it was. It was something to plan for and look forward to. It was something that involved, on the night of the concert, traveling into the city and, once inside the hall, finding your seats and waiting, eagerly, for the lights to go down, for the spotlight to come on, for the performers to walk onstage, and for the magic of hearing sounds in the dark to take hold.

I don’t know that I ever properly thanked my father (who died in 1977 at the age of 49) for these early musical adventures. I do know that the feeling I first experienced while on them—that, in listening to live music, you left the humdrum of daily life for something magical—has never faded.

Here, to remember Mary Travers, are two clips. In the first she’s singing background, along with several others, for Bob Dylan. The second is of Peter, Paul, and Mary.

Bob Dylan; Peter, Paul, and Mary; Joan Baez; Pete Singer; Freedom Singers; live, Newport Folk Festival (Rhode Island), 1963

Peter, Paul, and Mary, TV performance, 1963

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2009

Monday, 9/21/09

Here, on this last day of summer, saxophonist Albert Ayler takes the Gershwin classic to the far shores of the blues—where (as you’ll hear) the livin’ most certainly ain’t easy.

Albert Ayler, “Summertime”

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lagniappe

reading table

Yesterday, I happened upon this radio interview with New Yorker literary critic (and Harvard professor) James Wood, which I found quite interesting (but then, as an old English Lit major [and one-time high school English teacher], I’m a sucker for this sort of stuff). (Bonus: It’s followed by an interview with director Jane Campion, talking about her new John Keats/Fanny Brawne movie, Bright Star. Oh, and speaking of poetry: If you’d like to receive, via email, a daily dose of one of the finest Japanese haiku poets, you can subscribe to “Issa Haiku-a-Day” here [you’ll be glad you did].)

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2009

Sunday, 9/20/09

Saturday night he sings soul, Sunday morning gospel. Here, at Christian Tabernacle Church on the south side of Chicago, is Otis Clay, a label mate of Al Green at Hi Records.

Otis Clay, live, Chicago

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lagniappe

“How can you sing of amazing grace and all God’s wonders without using your hands?”—Mahalia Jackson

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2009

Saturday, 9/19/09

Here—with a shout-out to Rachael Zalutsky, the 20-something woman who cuts my hair while we talk about music (among other things)—is Battles, a band she opened my ears to.

Battles, live, Chicago, 2007

For those who’re interested in such genealogical details, one of the group’s members, Tyondai Braxton (he’s the guy on the right in the above still), is the son of Anthony Braxton, reed player, composer, bandleader extraordinaire—not to mention MacArthur “genius” grant winner and Wesleyan University professor.

And for those who’re interested in, uh, words, the lyrics to this (“Atlas”) can be found here.

Want to hear more? Here.

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2009

Friday, 9/18/09

Blues Guitar Festival/day 3 of 3

Performances like this usually fall somewhere between disappointing and disastrous. So many things can—and usually do—go wrong when you take a bunch of folks who’re used to leading their own bands and throw them together onstage. People trip all over each another; flash trumps feeling. But this performance, with Albert King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Paul Butterfield, and (at the end) B.B. King, has plenty of strong moments—some funny ones, too. Listen to Albert bark at Paul: “Turn around!” (0:39) And watch Albert outfox B.B. First he invites him back onstage (4:40) and then, just when B.B.’s about to take flight (5:55), he cuts him off—faster than you can say “wham”—with his own (wonderful) solo. So much for Emily Post.

Stevie Ray Vaughan, Albert King, Paul Butterfield, B.B. King, live, 1987

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lagniappe

A radio station that’s well worth checking out, if you’re not already familiar with it, is WKCR-FM, which broadcasts from NYC’s Columbia University. Like pretty much everything else these days, it’s available on-line. Among other things, it features a daily dose of Charlie Parker on “Bird Flight” (M-F, 8:30-9:30 a.m. [EDT]), hosted by Phil Schaap (profiled last year, by David Remnick, in the New Yorker), as well as, on Sunday, two excellent shows devoted to Indian music (6:00-8:00 a.m. and 7:00-9:00 p.m. [EDT]). (Another nice thing: the folks there are readily accessible; while listening yesterday, for instance, I heard an intriguing piece [by Alfred Schnittke] that I didn’t get the name of; I emailed them a query and, by the end of the night, had a response from the DJ.)

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2009

Thursday, 9/17/09

Blues Guitar Festival/day 2 of 3

A blues guitarist backed by, let’s see, Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, Zoot Sims, James Moody, and Teddy Wilson? With most blues artists that might seem odd. Not T-Bone Walker.

T-Bone Walker, live, England, 1966

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lagniappe

“When I heard T-Bone Walker play the electric guitar I had to have one. T-Bone Walker has a touch that nobody has been able to duplicate.”—B.B. King

“T-Bone Walker was a big influence on just about every guitar player around.”—Johnny Winter

“The first thing I can remember was my mother singing the blues as she would sit alone. I used to listen to her singing there at night, and I knew then that the blues was in me too.”—T-Bone Walker

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2009

Wednesday, 9/16/09

Blues Guitar Festival/day 1 of 3

If you think blues and country never mingle, just listen to blues guitar great Earl Hooker. Backstage, he fools around, lovingly, with the country classic “Walkin’ the Floor Over You.” Onstage, he launches into a bluesy instrumental that’s as hyped up as a truck driver, past midnight, on his fifth cup of coffee. While some musicians (particularly in jazz) are famous for playing “behind the beat” (Lester Young, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, et al.), Hooker keeps racing ahead of the beat, pushing so insistently that, at times, it feels like he might jump off the road altogether.

Earl Hooker, live, Germany, 1969

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lagniappe

“I used to listen to country and western and blues, John Lee Hooker, spirituals, the Bluegrass Boys, and Eddie Arnold. There was a radio station that come on everyday with country, spirituals, and the blues.”—Otis Rush

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