timeless
Charley (AKA “Charlie”) Patton (c. 1881-1934), “Some Happy Day,” 1929
SOME HAPPY DAY
Some day, some happy day, from sin set free
I’ll live with Christ for ages, some day, some dayMy trials will fewer be, some day, some day
When I shall have eternal home, some day, some day
Some day I’ll be in the entrance here, some day, some dayAdapted by Patton from “Some Day”, words by J. Graydon Hall, music by H. E. Barnett (Courtesy of YouTube)
alone
Charley Patton (1891-1934), “Prayer of Death,” 1929
Ever feel like, each day, you understand less and less?
Davis Sisters (with Jackie Verdell), “We’ll Understand It Better By and By,” live (TV broadcast), early 1960s
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
lagniappe
reading table
So long as that woman from the Rijksmuseum
in painted quiet and concentration
keeps pouring milk day after day
from the pitcher to the bowl
the World hasn’t earned
the world’s end.—Wislawa Szymborska, “Vermeer” (trans. Clare Cavanagh & Stanislaw Baranczak, Here [2010])
***
Johannes Vermeer, The Milkmaid (c. 1658)
*****
Speaking of Szymborska, a charter member, like Von Freeman, of the recently announced MCOTD Hall of Fame (coincidentally, they were both born in 1923), here’s something I just came across:
I am a big admirer of her [Szymborska’s] work. I have read everything she has written, and I keep coming back to it. She is a very witty poet and she has greatly helped me to enjoy life. She exactly fits my definition of an artist. Who shouldn’t only have profound insight and a sharp mind but also remember that his obligation is to entertain the reader. And this is exactly what she does.
—Woody Allen, in the documentary Sometimes Life Is Bearable (2010)
*****
listening room: (some of) what’s playing
• Paul Simon, So Beautiful or So What (Hear Music)
• Shane MacGowan and the Popes, The Snake (ZTT [import])
• Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band, Trout Mask Replica (Reprise/Ada)
• The Best of Charlie Patton (Yazoo)
• Charley Patton, The Voice of the Delta (Indigo)
• The Detroiters/The Golden Echoes, Old Time Religion (Specialty)
• The Spiritualaires of Hurtsboro, Alabama, Singing Songs of Praise (CaseQuarter)
• Archie Shepp/Kahil El’Zabar’s Ritual Trio, Conversations (Delmark)
• Benny Goodman, The Complete Trios (Capitol)
• Charlie Parker, The Complete Royal Roost Live Recordings on Savoy, Vol. 3 (Savoy/Columbia [import])
• Charles Gayle, Repent (Knitting Factory)
• Steve Lacy-Roswell Rudd Quartet, School Days (hat Art)
• Wadada Leo Smith & Jack DeJohnette, America (Tzadik)
• Kenny Werner, No Beginning, No End (Half Note)
• Bach, Suites for Unaccompanied Cello/Jean-Guihen Queyras (Harmonia Mundi [import])
• Alfred Schnittke, String Quartet No. 3, Piano Quintet, Piano Quartet/
Borodin String Quartet with Ludmilla Berlinsky (Virgin Classics)
• Morton Feldman, Piano and String Quartet/Kronos Quartet with Aki Takahashi (Nonesuch)
• Morton Feldman, For Bunita Marcus, Stephane Ginsburgh, piano (Sub Rosa) (available as a download from Amazon for 89¢)
• WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University)
—Bird Flight (Phil Schaap, jazz [Charlie Parker])
—Traditions in Swing (Phil Schaap, jazz)
—Eastern Standard Time (Carter Van Pelt, Jamaican music)
—Raag Aur Taal (Various, Indian music)
• WFMU-FM
—Mudd Up! (DJ/Rupture, “new bass and beats”)
—Sinner’s Crossroads (Kevin Nutt, gospel)
old stuff
(an occasional series)
Coolest campaign music ever?
Nashville Mayor Karl Dean, campaign commercial
(released 7/21/11, election 8/4/11)
*****
Here’s the original recording, made for Paramount Records, in Grafton, Wisconsin, in 1929.
Charley Patton (AKA Charlie Patton), “High Water Everywhere”
Part 1
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
Part 2
Vodpod videos no longer available.If Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits got their sound from Howlin’ Wolf,
Wolf got his sound right here.
**********
lagniappe
[A]lthough Patton’s success was undoubtedly due in part to his astonishing abilities as a guitarist, and the depth and soul of his blues singing, it also owed a lot to his professionalism and skill as an entertainer. Friends interviewed in later years would comment on his dependability, the fact that he always showed up on time and took care of business. His performances were masterpieces of showmanship: he was famed for tricks like playing behind his head or between his legs, to the point that some rival musicians disparaged him as a mere trickster. Unfair as this seems to modern listeners, it highlights an important point: To his live audiences, Patton was not the subtle player and singer we hear on the records, nor particularly noted for his soulful depth. He was a man who banged out loud rhythms, shouted so he could be heard to the back of the room, and was a dazzling showman–despite his older, acoustic repertoire, he can in some ways be considered a predecessor to Little Richard and James Brown.
***
It is a mistake to view this music through the prism of modern blues, to see Patton and his peers as the progenitors of the first electric Chicago bands, and thus of the barroom boogie bands that fill suburban bars outside every American city. His rhythms are a world–or at least a continent–away from the straight-ahead, 4/4 sound that defines virtually all modern blues. That is why so few contemporary players can capture anything of his greatness. There is the tendency to play his tunes for driving power, missing the ease, the relaxed subtlety that underlay all of his work. It is a control born of playing this music in eight or ten-hour sessions, week after week and year after year, for an audience of extremely demanding dancers, and of remembering centuries of previous dance rhythms–not only the complex polyrhythms of West Africa, but also slow drags, cakewalks, hoedowns, and waltzes.
*****
Holly Ridge, Mississippi
music clip of the day 